


a half of a whole (cannot truly forget the other)

by Steamcraft



Series: live long in the minds of men [1]
Category: Merlin (TV), Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Alex Vlahos Mordred, Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Amnesia, Arthur Returns, Asa Butterfield Mordred, Depression, F/M, Gen, Hospital Malpractice, Hurt Merlin, Immortal Merlin, Implied/Referenced Suicidal Attempts, Insomnia, M/M, Mental Health Issues, One-Sided Arthur/Guinevere, Panic Attacks, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-14 07:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steamcraft/pseuds/Steamcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the majority of the patients in Camelot Mental Health Institute, Colin Morgan - or <i>Merlin</i> as he insists to be called - seems the most normal aside from the delusions. Bradley only wishes he'd stop calling him <i>Arthur</i> for gods sake because now he dreams of legends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

.i

Bradley swiped his employee ID and entered the staff break room to fix himself a cup of coffee before seven rolled steadily closer. It wouldn't be the first time working twelve-hour shifts, but the mornings were always the roughest. When the door didn't click and swung open instead, Bradley glanced behind him, meeting the blue eyed stare of a young man around his age wearing a hoodie and worn jeans. Bradley was guessing maintenance crew.

He nodded a greeting and made room in front of the coffee pots after grabbing a Styrofoam cup. "Mornin', in for the brew?"

Tech Guy grinned and stepped beside him to take a cup as well, left hand stretching the sweater pocket. "Always. You, then?" he asked. Bradley hummed in agreement and added just one packet of sugar to his coffee while the other circled around him to the fridge. "You're new here," he commented as he poured milk into his coffee.

"Oh," Bradley smiled slightly in embarrassment. "Yeah, first day in. Name's Bradley." He stuck out his free hand when the milk back into the fridge. Tech Guy put his cup down on the counter and shook his hand, his left hand not emerging still. Bradley looked over it with politeness.

"Merlin," Tech Guy said with a bright smile.

Bradley waited for the punch line, given that the institute was called Camelot, then smiled politely when nothing was offered. "Really?" he asked, disbelievingly. He didn't want to take the piss on his first day from any prats.

"Yes, really," Merlin said without dropping his smile, but dropped his hand to reach for his milky coffee. The blue eyes closed briefly in a delighted expression, a sound of contentment coming from him. Then he focused on Bradley again, gesturing to his attire. "So. CNA, RN...?"

"LPN, actually," he replied, taking a drink of his own and glancing at the clock that hung over the door.

"Ah, both of two worlds, then," Merlin said sympathetically. "I don't envy it, not one bit. Some of them are just bonkers here at Camelot, but I guess that's what you might expect. Though Will can be excused, I suppose, though I gotta say his anger management sessions aren't really working."

Bradley glanced at him from the corner of his eyes. Were the non-nursing staff really eager to gossip so quickly about the patients? The training videos and books stressed too much about patient confidentiality, Bradley couldn't make a reply on it. He led the direction off nursing on to maintenance. "You think you have it easier, then? With all the demands for assistance with little broken jobs?"

Merlin raised an eyebrow over his cup. "What?"

Right as Bradley was going to elaborate, the door opened to two women in scrubs. They looked between Bradley and Merlin, which they didn't seemed surprised but still disappointed in seeing Merlin there.

"Colin," a short woman scolded lightly, long hair framing her cheekbones that gave her a slightly sunken appearance. "You know the dining room is for staff only. Who's card did you swipe?"

Merlin appeared affronted, feigned cheaply. "I just came in with Arthur--" Bradley bristled. He didn't even remember his name? "Good man held the door open and everything for a servant like me." He grinned cheekily at the both of them.

The woman held the door open for him to leave, the other woman volunteering to go with him. "Just go on back to your room. Breakfast will be around soon."

Still grinning, he bounded forward with a coffee salut. "Right-o, then. See you later, Freya. I hope to see you around, Arthur!"

"Its Bradley!" he called as the man named Merlin Colin left. He looked at Freya as she let the door close behind the two. "Is he always like that?"

Freya smiled and also went to the refreshment counter, making hot chocolate. "He's sweet and means well, but Colin's always getting around where he shouldn't be. I've been suggesting to the DON we put a magnetic bracelet on him to keep track of him." Before Bradley could understand, he was caught under her studious gaze. "You must be the greenhorn. Bradley, right? The LPN?"

"Yes," he said, keeping up. "And... you're Freya, I gather?"

Her brown eyes widened. "Wha-? Oh! No! Sorry, I'm Laura. Laura Donnelly, CNA. Colin just calls me Freya. Say's its my real name like how Merlin's his." Laura quirked a grin that was mostly teeth. "Though I've never seen him anoint the heavy name of Arthur on anyone, so that's something to mention in report."

"Wait- report?" Bradley backtracked, blinked, and felt momentarily winded. "Merlin's a patient here?"

Laura nodded and sipped her chocolate. "Yeah, and his name is Colin Morgan. Identity delusions, as you gather, but you'll read more in his file and care plan - et cetera, et cetera."


	2. Chapter 2

Anthony (Tony, please call me Tony) Head ( _RN, DON_ ), shook his hand as Bradley walked into the meeting room. “Great to have you here. Have you settled alright?”

Bradley nodded with a smile and his supervisor clapped him on the shoulder before they sat down. Bradley sat next to Laura without hesitation, but he immediately regretted it when she announced, looking at him, “It seems our newest addition is quite the prize: we finally have our legendary King Arthur.”

His face flushed when there was a round of applause and laughter. Tony grinned at him and said with mock seriousness, “I’m not sure if I should be worried about having a son I never knew about, or keeping my throne.” Bradley blinked, surprised.

“You were Uther Pendragon?”

Tony nodded. “When Colin first arrived, he bowed to me and addressed me with ‘Your Majesty.’ A little later, he told Laura that in his mind I am Arthur’s father. Richard,” he said to an older man across from him, nearly bald and a wickedly high eyebrow. “We’re going to need a documentation if having an Arthur in Colin’s world is going to bring any changes in behavior or mental status.”

Richard hummed, pen scratching at a notepad in front of him. “I was just about to bring up the suggestion. Mr. James, it’s very likely that Colin will become obsessed with you fairly quickly,” he warned. “Please don’t be alarmed; during the years we’ve had Colin he’s never once been violent, but when he meets someone he believes to be from the tales of Camelot, Colin clings to them for quite a while.”

“All right,” Bradley acknowledged, sipping his coffee. “Should I be prepared for anything in particular, or...?”

The woman across from Bradley spoke before the others. “Colin’s harmless, but his questions about if I remember anything about Camelot were annoying after the hundredth time. Though,” she added like an afterthought, “once he seemed certain that I didn’t know anything, he went into a state of depression.”

There were a couple of quiet agreements around the table, and a some expressions turned forlorn as though the thought of Colin being depressed was saddening.

Tony cleared his throat. “Bradley, this is Katie. Colin calls her Morgana, your half-sister, apparently. No seducing your brother, Katie.” Katie cackled with a few others, hands rubbing together mischievously, and Bradley’s hair stood at ends. He was going to have to watch his back with her, he could tell, probably not with the _seduction_ so much as she was plain trouble. He had a cousin like her, kiddish and scheming.

Tony looked to an older woman sitting next to Richard. “Anything new over the night, Pauline?” Bradley clicked his pen and sat poised to take notes, the discussion about the Camelot legend parallels seemingly over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nursing 101:
> 
> DON: Director of Nursing (the one in-charge of the nursing department).  
> RN: Registered Nurse  
> LPN: Licensed Practical Nurse (about the same as an RN, but unable to do certain things, like injected medicine.)  
> CNA: Certified Nurse's Assistant


	3. Chapter 3

It took until the middle of the shift for Colin to approach him, when the day was slow for staff and relaxing for the patients. Colin crept up beside Bradley at the nurse's desk and sat in an office chair. It was discouraged for patients to be behind the desk, but not disallowed; the patient had to be watched, meds and sensitive paperwork put away.

"So is this going to be your normal shift, Arthur?"

"My name is Bradley, Colin," he says without much hope. Colin sits in the empty chair beside him, casually swinging back and forth. "And I'll be working whatever shift my boss wants me to. I still need to learn the basics of what goes on around here."

Colin nods with his fingers crossed over his chest. "Fair enough. Do you remember Leon?"

The suddenness throws him off. "Who?"

"Or Lancelot? Elyan? Percival?" Bradley blinks.

"Lance- _Sir_ Percival?”

Hope rises in Colin’s eyes. “Yes!”

Bradley twists his mouth some, studying the young man as he leans back in his chair. He wonders if Colin unconsciously crosses legend with memories of people he’d met, putting names that everyone knows so well to the personalities he found suitable.

Though this idea is crossed out: upon meeting Colin, he addressed him as Arthur.

“I don’t know them, Colin,” he said finally.

Colin stares at him for a long moment, expression hardening. “Merlin.”

“Right, right.” He even waves his hand dismissively.

The laugh that comes from Colin surprises Bradley, and he watches Colin’s eyes crinkle in the corner and laugh lines stretch from his chin to nose. For a moment, there’s a bright sparkle in his eyes.

“You were always such a dollophead.”

Bradley scrunched his nose. “A what? That’s not even a real word.”

“Sure it is,” Colin says as he leans back. There’s a soft smile on his face, a faraway look that takes his face even though Colin’s still with the here and now.

“Describe it.”

“King Arthur.”

Bradley’s eyebrow rises. “Now I’m really lost.” But Colin only shrugs and says, “You were always an idiot, Arthur.”

The way Colin talks, Bradley can’t help but notice, is way too familiar and casual for someone speaking to a king. If Merlin wasn’t an enemy of the court or King Arthur’s advisor (whichever legend you partook), then why is Colin insinuating Merlin jested around with King Arthur?

He says it how he sees: “Your interpretation of King Arthur is weird.”

Colin side-glances him, pauses in his swinging. “I’m not interpreting anything. Everyone else has it wrong. History books shoved out the truth yet it was too great a story. Here comes some idiot who decides, ‘hey! Why not twist this around and make it the most remembered story in the world!’” His teeth grit, seething. “By word of mouth the truth was twisted even further.”

“You say it like you were there,” Bradley remarks, and he crosses his arms, expecting to have caught Colin at something he wouldn’t be able to comment to.

Colin shocks him again. He nods and says, “I were.”

“That’s preposterous,” he says, incredulous. “Do the math, Morgan! That’d make you over…” He flails his hand, “However old King Arthur is.”

“I’m over 1,500 years old, Arthur, not as young as you,” Colin returns with a grin.

Bradley leans forward, scoots his chair closer. “Listen to what I’m telling you: that’s not possible.”

Colin matches his movement. “And you are a cabbagehead.” He abruptly stands, making Bradley push away in pure startlement. Colin dusts his hands off as he side-glances him again. “Alright, I’m not getting anywhere with you right now. I’ll try to find something to jog your memory, Arthur, just you wait.”

As he walks away, Bradley calls after him, “It’s Bradley!”

Laura clacks her nails on the desk counter and gives Bradley another start. “Christ, don’t sneak up like that!” She giggles at him. Bradley points to Colin’s retreating back. “How do you all engage with that? School taught me not to feed delusions, but he talks like you haven’t said a thing!”

She smirks. “Most of us don’t argue with him to prove a point. Be a little more empathic, less skeptical.” Laura glances to the other patients in the day room. “That whole ‘crazy people don’t know they’re crazy’ business is true, but you can’t shove this reality into their own.

“There was a resident here before who could enter and leave this reality on her own. She said she was going through a portal into another dimension to check on her life there and her body will act the same as if she never left. Instead, she’d end up completely catatonic and was dependant on our care until she came back.”

Bradley ventures a guess, “Was it usually by the time she got hungry?” Because there were some who faked illnesses, and that was just wrong.

But Laura shook her head. “Nope. She wouldn’t even chew if we put food in her mouth. We had to resort to drastic measures and get her a feeding tube surgically installed in her stomach. When she finally came back three months later, she freaked out. We had to explain what actually happens when she leaves, and she took it pretty easy, like she understood that we were trying to take care of her.”

His eyebrow raises again. “Creepy and weird. How did she act to reality afterwards?”

“Like you and I,” she says with a shrug. “After she found out that her body doesn’t move, she accepted it and thanked us graciously when she returned from long disappearances for keeping her well. It was weird, but it makes you start to wonder--”

“Nope!” Bradley slams his palms over his ears. Laura’s smirk returns bigger. He won’t hear of how it could be true that a woman left this world and went to another. He’s so skeptical that if he doesn’t see it for his own eyes, has every working explained to him thoroughly, it doesn’t happen, it can’t happen, it doesn’t exist.

Colin Morgan is not a thousand-year old wizard from a fictional kingdom.

No one can be expected to believe that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've switched pretenses. I've been writing in the present tense for so long, past tense is hard to create again for mood setting. But hey! It makes for longer chapters~ Good, yes? Yes?

At the end of a tiring and trying day, Bradley sighs as he puts on his coat. Katie, the second day nurse (after Richard), gathers her belongings next to him slowly. “Well?” she prompts with a smile.

“Well,” he says, glancing around the day room where the patients were still eating. He catches Colin staring and Bradley holds his stare for a couple seconds before turning back to Katie. “It’s certainly not what I expected.”

Her eyebrow raises. “What were you expecting,” she asks with a laugh.

He shrugs. “You’ve seen the training videos, right? They show madness; this lot seems rather subdued.”

“Imagine them off their meds, James.”

He laughs. “No, thank you.”

An elderly man comes around the corner in scrubs and stops short at the sight of them. “Ah, Miss McGrath,” he said, voice oddly pitched and raspy. “How was today? And who’s this?” He asks as his gaze settles on Bradley. Bradley shivers inwardly, feeling exposed under the man’s wise eyes.

“John, this is Bradley James, LPN,” Katie introduces. “Bradley, this is the other night nurse that works opposite of Pauline. John Hurt, BRN.” She begins a rattle of the day’s events ( _— nothing exciting, really, we found Arthur your’s truly right here, then Markus had a small fit about his dolls, the normal_ ), but John doesn’t appear to be listening. He keeps his eyes narrowed on Bradley until Bradley begins to shift nervously. What’s with these people, honestly?

John smiles unexpectedly. “Yes, yes,” he says to Katie, letting Bradley finally relax. “Surely someone explained to Mr. Markus that the dolls were merely sleeping? I’d hate for him to carry on during the night and wake Mr. Adetomiwa. He’s a forgiving soul, but not enough coffee in the world can help in the morning.”

Katie’s smile turns brilliant. “Of course, John. We’ve also found out not to let Bradley here do the talking,” she says with a nudge against his shoulder. “He’s got too much of a skeptic mind and won’t play along with the residents.”

John feigns hurt, but the disappointment seems rather real. “Oh no,” he says sadly. “Whatever did he say to poor Mr. Colin?”

“I’m not King Arthur,” Bradley speaks up. “I don’t see why I should pretend to be King Arthur to make a mental patient happy. It’ll only further the condition.”

The older man nods wisely. “But how do you stop a delusion when it’s been with the patient since knowing? He doesn’t know otherwise; you could say Colin was born with the mentality of believing he is Merlin himself.”

Bradley scoffs and shoulders his work bag. “Which is why he’s here. You have your way of nursing, and I have mine. No disrespect, Mr. Hurt.”

“No, of course not,” he says with a smile. “The King is such an idiot sometimes, after all.”

 _Unbelievable!_ “Excuse you?”

“Now gentlemen,” Katie laughs nervously. “It’s been a long day for the greenie John, let’s not torture him on his way out.”

“Of course not,” he says again, clearing a path for them to leave. As they follow out, John puts a hand on Bradley’s shoulder. “We will be expecting you to stay, won’t we, Mr. James?” It’s asked quietly, genuinely curious, and his eyes are sharp and assessing.

Bradley quickly sizes him up, and his conclusions come to… well, he has no idea how to categorise this man. John Hurt is odd, and there is the way he looked at him that Bradley can’t put his finger on. It rattles him, but Bradley forces himself to nod wordlessly in answer.

John claps his shoulder, eyes crinkling deep as he smiles. “Good. Carry on, have a good night. Oh, Mr. Wilson! There you are!” He lets go as his attention is caught by Richard and his notorious eyebrow.

“These meds aren’t going to count themselves, Hurt,” Richard threatens.

With a tug from Katie, Bradley quickly made his escape.

“Who in the hell was that?” Bradley asks her incredulously when the door closes behind them.

Katie laughs strong as they walk into the parking lot. “John’s always like that with the new staff. Belittles them and wants them to stay. Called me a bloody witch, he did,” she says with a grin. “In your rotation you’ll have to work with him, so be kind. He is really nice and all; just takes some getting used to.”

“His staring is…”

“Creepy,” she finishes for him, and he nods with a soft _yeah_. “Like he’s staring through you, or something, figuring out your whole life’s story with one look.”

Bradley doesn’t say anything in return, but that really sums it up.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, James!”

“G’night, McGrath.”

*

“Welcome home,” Angel greets him at the door, looking as dashing as ever. She’s slipping on her flats, hair done up pretty, and scarf around her neck. Bradley kisses her on the cheek.

“Leaving so quick? Not even going to ask me what special hell I’ve decided to work at?” She stops and smiles up at him patiently but he laughs. “Get out of here, Angel,” Bradley shoos her. “The Great Santiago won’t be here for much longer.”

Angel glares playfully at him. “You should really stop saying his name like that, he thinks you hate him.” She quickly gives him a hug on her way out, saying, “I’ll make breakfast in the morning before you go!”

Bradley shut the door behind her quietly, and he sighs to no one.

*

Merlin had abandoned his dinner tray to watch Arthur and Morgana leave, and now with them long gone he stands at the window still, lost in thought. He can’t help but feel so disappointed. Arthur doesn’t recognise him, and it hurts. Without his magic, Merlin won’t be able to do any firm convincing on his part, yet… something tells him that Arthur would laugh and ask where the smoke and mirrors were hidden.

“Merlin,” Kilgharrah says from behind him. A medicine cup shakes. “Your sleeping pills.”

“I don’t want them,” he mutters.

Kilgharrah exhales a long breath. “Merlin,” he says a little more sternly. “I know you don’t need sleep, but this reunion is going to wear at your mind. You will need the rest.”

“It’s not a reunion,” Merlin says quietly still, aware the Dragon can hear him. “Not until Arthur remembers me, it’s the same as everyone else.” In a sudden surge of fury, Merlin’s fist punches the window frame. “Why has The White Goddess tormented me with them? After fifteen-hundred years, you’d think… You’d think I’d deserve some peace!”

The Dragon snorts. “Whoever said Arianrhod was kind?” he asks it rhetorically, and shakes the cup again. “Take them.”

“I won’t.”

“Dammit, Merlin, don’t be so stubborn,” Kilgharrah growls. “Arthur is not the last to return, I assure you. I see a grave danger ahead, and you need your wits about you, Sorcerer.”

“I am hardly as such anymore.”

“You’re being a child, that’s what you are.” He comes close and set the cup on the windowsill, but lingers before leaving. “I will say this much, Merlin: Arthur’s return wasn’t out of kindness. The players are being set on the board all over again. You need to get Arthur to remember, or Albion will be doomed once again.”

Merlin rolls his eyes. “Albion demanded everything I loved before, and took it from my hands. I almost rather have this amnesiac Arthur than no Arthur at all.” He knocks his forehead against the window. “I won’t watch him die again.”

“If you don’t save him, he won’t return for a third time,” the Dragon says quietly in warning. “You must give to receive.”

“I’ve given my magic back to The White Goddess when She demanded it,” he retorts. “Where is my reward?”

“I would have assumed the grace to leave you with your memories,” he reminds Merlin tartly, then leaves to tend to the other patients.

After a few minutes, Merlin glances at the single Ambien in the cup, and takes it dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nursing 101 (I need to admit that these are American terms, lol):  
> BRN - Bachelor's Degree in Nursing  
> 'Med count' is something the nurses need to do to count which narcotics have been used during the day. If something comes up missing or not counted for, it really effects your reliability as a nurse. (In a witness experience, a nurse I worked with was stealing narcotics during the night and was eventually found out and fired.)  
> Ambien is a drug to help insomnia.  
> Warning: Do not take any tablet medicine dry unless you're an immortal being. After while of the habit, you can damage your throat. This has been a PSA.


	5. Chapter 5

The next day follows much like the first: Colin meets him at the entrance, calls him Arthur, and Bradley reminds him again that he’s not the King of Camelot. Bradley enters report, where Tony teases and Richard looks both amused and ready to move on, Katie is smirking to herself, and John gives a detailed report of the night’s events. Markus continued to act up, disturbing Adetomiwa’s sleep; patient Joe Dempsie woke in the middle night and had a random fit of rage, Ativan was administered and he calmed, patient due to a therapy session by the end of the week.

“Are they violent raging, or just,” Bradley trails, twirling his hand, “screaming?”

John glances at him from above his reading glasses. “Occasionally he’ll throw things around him that he can lift. Chairs. Topple tables. Otherwise it’s only screaming.”

“But,” Katie is quick to add, “never does Dempsie target the staff, not even with his words. He fits about his missing father.”

That doesn’t sound right. Bradley quickly shuffles through Joe’s patient folder. He’s gotten copies of all twenty-four patient folders carried around to study the profiles carefully. Patient 3843 Joe Dempsie entered the facility nearly two years ago on his own accord, instead of an rehabilitation center for his alcohol addiction. Without alcohol, Joe’s moods ranged in sporadic measures (Bi-Polar), deeming unfit for outside socialization. “His parents visit regularly, this says, once a week.” At the end of the profile, there’s an added note in fancy script: _Known As (by Patient 1000 Colin Morgan): William of Ealdor_. That’s unofficial and useless information, why would it be in scanned copies of patient profiles? Bradley frowns at it.

“About six months ago we asked his doctor if he could be tested for Early-Onset, but the results were inconclusive,” Tony says, leaning back in his chair. “He recognises his parents when they’re here, has no sign of abuse within his father’s company. Joe is confused when we don’t understand the differences of the father he’s angry about and his actual father. There is debate among staff if it’s religious dementia and how he’s angry at God, though his family history doesn’t have church affiliation.”

Bradley hums, and report continues.

*

“How are you feeling, Will?” Merlin asks his friend over breakfast.

“Like shite,” he grouses as he tears apart his muffin. He looks at Merlin as he slouches in his chair with a sigh. “I’m tired, and I’m Joe.”

Merlin completely ignores his own breakfast tray and shakes his head. He leans forward, controversially whispering, “No you’re not. You’re the closest I’ve come across making a breakthrough, Will; I’m not giving up hope now, not with you. You are one of my best mates, Will, I won’t let this change anything.”

“I’ve said it before: I hardly know you, _mate_.”

“We grew up together in Ealdor,” Merlin says for the hundredth time. “You know me mum. I knew your mum.” He refuses to mention Will’s father; Merlin may be desperate to find his friends’ memories, but he isn’t cruel. Will’s breaking the walls enough on his own on that account.

“I know you’re mental like the rest of us, Colin.”

Merlin sighs and props his cheek on a fist, gazing out the window, and idly starts eating. After a long moment of silence between them, he says quietly, “You were right, Will, in the end. I did become the servant of a great king.” He leans back in his chair and turns to sit sideways, looking over his shoulder to find Arthur sitting behind the desk.

“I’m Joe, but that’s nice,” Will says dully, then, “Did you ever tell him the truth?” With wide eyes, he whips around to stare at Will. Will’s staring at his plate with a deep confusion, biting his lip. “I don’t know why I said that.”

A few seconds pass and Merlin says with a small smile, “That’s okay. I did tell him, though. Arthur understood in the end.”

Will glances at the nurses behind the desk. “You’re calling the newbie Arthur, aren’t ya? Is he the Arthur you’re talking about?” At Merlin’s affirmative, Will shakes his head. “I don’t really want to know how your mind works. You’ve been here, what? Before I was, at least, and you’ve just now created your King Arthur? I would’ve started with Arthur, then picked out the Round Table Knights.” Merlin frowns, watching him scoop eggs on his muffin and takes a big bite with a grimace. “This tastes like shite. Margot must be working.”

“You think Margot is working whenever you don’t like what you’re served,” Merlin mutters blithely, stabbing at his own breakfast finally. It does kinda taste like shite.

*

Colin plops down in the chair next to him again, and Bradley catches the sight of Laura smiling encouragingly at him as she helps a patient. Bradley sighs. “What do you want, Morgan?”

“It’s Merlin,” he repeats himself.

“Your name is Colin Morgan,” Bradley reminds him, a little less than gently. He wasn’t going to feed the delusion; he’s had his training and he was going to stick with it. The other nurses in Camelot Institution may have become a bit soft and allowing leeways, but that wasn’t Bradley’s method.

“Just what some street mates called me before I got stuck here,” Colin shrugs. “Couldn’t really tell them I was _Merlin_ , right? Might have thought I was crazy or something.” His background on file was the police had nothing on Colin Morgan when they cleared the streets. There was no record of fingerprints, or birth records, or…anything. No school, no family, and nothing to his name but the clothes on his back. They held him at the station until they found a therapist that suggested the authorities deposited Colin at Camelot, post haste. Colin grins, but it quickly fades when he meets Bradley’s frown.

“You have no problem calling yourself Merlin now, so you should probably stop these delusions before you’re stuck here permanently,” Bradley says. “It’s like you’re faking it for a free bed and meal; you’re completely normal otherwise.”

Colin rolls his eyes. “I am normal, and of course I call myself Merlin now; my friends are here. Gaius and Will, Freya and Elyan. Hell, Morgana even, if she stays this nice.” He glances away, stares at Laura. “And there’s you, Arthur,” he says, voice soft and firm. “I’m not going to deny who I am when I have you guys around. It’s less lonely that way.”

Bradley watches him for a quiet moment, chin tucked in his hand and eyes narrowed. “How do you mean, less lonely? Are you looking for people to play your characters?”

The patient lets out a humorless laugh. “It’d be easier if that was the case, wouldn’t it? To play a crazy man? I’d have friends right off the bat willing to step into your shoes, Arthur, but no one could be as great a king as you. They’d even be a bigger pain in my arse than you were. Leon, though,” Colin trails thoughtfully, “he was a good king.”

“Who’s Leon?” Bradley has to ask. Which interpretation of King Arthur was Colin feeding on?

Colin looks at him. “He was your first knight, followed by Gwaine and Lancelot. There was also Percival and Elyan. Do those names ring bells?”

“Legends of course, but even legends didn’t say anything of a Leon or Elyan,” Bradley pauses. “Didn’t you say Elyan was here? Who is he?”

With a nod, Colin points to a patient sitting by himself in the reading corner. Adetomiwa Edun. Adetomiwa keeps to himself, only speaking _ever_ to say please and thank you to the staff. He had horrible nightmares of drowning children before entering himself in the facility almost four years ago. There have been no relief to his visions, but instead they’ve gotten stronger. Adetomiwa hallucinates them during the day, and had admitted that he tries to ignore them, that he knows it isn’t sane to see them.

“And he’s one of King Arthur’s knights,” Bradley says doubtfully.

“Your knights,” Colin corrects. “He’s Gwen’s brother.”

Bradley rolls his eyes, but still looks at Adetomiwa with… consideration. It should be almost time for his meds, in about fifteen minutes. “Let me guess, Gwen is short for Queen Guinevere.”

“That’s right!”

“So did Guinevere and Lancelot betray me and send me to my death?” he asks sarcastically. There isn’t an answer, and the silence grows long and tense until Bradley glances over at silently fuming Colin. “What—”

“When you remember,” Colin says, dark and furious, “you’ll regret your words, Arthur. Lancelot died _twice_ , and Gwen would never have betrayed your trust or your love.”

Bradley blinks. And blinks again. Then he shrugs, feeling slightly uncomfortable. “Sure,” he replies, flippant. “I just really wish I knew what version of the legend you were leading from, Morgan.”

“My memories are no legends,” he responds, voice going flat. “It’s— oh _no way_.” Colin is looking over Bradley’s shoulder, completely dumbfounded, and he follows his gaze to see Angel coming up the hall, waving with a bag in her other hand. His lunch to make up for breakfast, Bradley supposes; she was resting too peacefully, he couldn’t have bothered to wake her so early to make them breakfast. Behind her tags along Santiago, smiling easily at the people they pass.

Colin clamps a hand on his wrist. “Do you know them? You have to know them.”

Bradley gives him a strange look. “’Course I do. That’s my flatmate and her…friend.”

“I mean _their names_.”

“You think I wouldn’t know the name of my flatmate?” Bradley hisses. “Angel and Santiago, you twit.”

“Patient abuse, Arthur, don’t call me names,” Colin whispers back.

“You called me an idiot just yesterday!”

“Because you are!”

“I resent— Angel! What are you doing here?” Bradley smiles up at her and nods in greeting to Santiago who nods back.

Angel laughs. “You didn’t wake me up! I told you breakfast was on me, so I made extra for lunch.” She passes the plastic bag over the counter that Bradley takes with his freehand; Colin’s still got a tight grip on his arm. Angel notices and she raises a curious eyebrow, smile widening. “Hello there.”

“Hi, Gwen,” Colin says brightly, then, “And Lancelot, how are you both?”

Bradley startles. No way. There is no way Colin is dragging Angel and Santiago in his delusions. This time, Bradley could see a connection in the way Colin made them into his characters: they were just talking about Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot.

Angel, bless her, continues to smile. “I’m okay, thank you. You can call me Angel, though, and this is my boyfriend Santiago.” Santiago stares at Colin in confusion, like trying to place a face, but he smiles.

“Nice to meet you,” he says.

Colin blinks and smiles. “Boyfriend. Wow. How long have you two been together?”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, Morgan?” Bradley grates, twisting his arm out of Colin’s hand.

“Nope.”

Angel laughs again at the display. “I don’t mind, Bradley. We met about a year ago,” she answers Colin, “and… this may seem rather silly, but love at first sight was pretty much it.” Santiago’s smile widens more genuine listening to her.

“Not silly at all!” Colin ensures. “I knew it from the beginning that you two were totally mad for each other.”

Her face goes a little weird, like she’s just realising she’s talking to a crazy person. “You might have me confused with someone else, I’m sorry.”

“You may not remember me—”

“Morgan—” Bradley warns.

“—but I’m Merlin.”

“Like the wizard?” she asks, uncertain. She glances at Bradley who just sighs and leans back in his chair, shrugging at them. He does mouth he’s harmless, though, to settle her nerves.

“Exactly him,” Colin says with a nod. “And you’re Guinevere, but you wanted to be called Gwen.”

“And my boyfriend, you said…”

“Lancelot du Lac,” Santiago says suddenly, and makes a presentation of bowing at Colin. Bradley throws his arms up; of course Santiago would play along to appease Colin. It was his gig, and ruins all of Bradley’s hard work. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Merlin. How’s the…” The man wiggles his fingers.

Colin jerks his thumb at Bradley. “How does it seem?” He doesn’t seem happy.

Santiago looks at Bradley, who again shrugs. “No idea what he’s talking about, mate.”

“What time do you get off, Bradley?” Santiago asks suddenly. “There’s a footie game I was hoping I could interest you in.”

“I’m down for a couple drinks and a match on my weekend, but I gotta be back here in the morning.”

“What time do you get off work,” he repeats himself.

Bradley looks at him carefully. “Nursing is twelve hour shifts at o-seven hundred and nineteen hundred. Seven-thirty,” he responds slowly. “Why?”

Santiago smiles, hands coming up on Angel’s shoulders. The woman smiles, her own hand reaching up to clasp his. “I’m coming off tour. I wanted to know your schedule, make plans to get together.”

“Congratulations,” Bradley says sincerely. It meant less of Angel’s time at the flat, but it also means she’s happier.

Katie comes out of nowhere, back from lunch, and kicks his chair. “Go to lunch, James. I got this lot.” She nods at his friends.

Angel glances behind her when Santiago says, as he glances at Katie. “Best to go, yeah?”

*

Santiago leaves Guinevere when Bradley comes home. He gives her a kiss goodbye, still counting his lucky stars; such a rare find indeed. Her smiles leaves him breathless even a year later. Or years later. His head hurts thinking about it. He claps Arthur on the shoulder as he leaves, says, “Take care of her.”

“You know I will,” Bradley returns, a hint of bitterness in his tone. Lancelot feels only slightly guilty about it, but this time… Gwen is his.

“Thank you,” he says gratefully.

He drives immediately to Camelot Mental Health Institute. His pulse is quick and his hands are shaking just slightly. Slowly, Santiago gets out of his car and makes his way inside. Most of the lights have been turned off, and he keeps himself as quiet as possible going down the long hall. An old nurse looks up from his work and quietly assesses him as he approaches hesitantly.

“Visiting hours have ended at eight,” the nurse finally says first. “What business have you here?”

“I need to see someone, please.”

“Whom do you need to see?”

“Uh,” Lancelot stumbles. What name did Arthur call Merlin? “Moran?”

“You must mean Morgan,” he says, leaning back and lowering his arms on the chair. “He should be asleep by now.”

“I must see him,” he insists. “It’s important!”

The nurse tilts his head to the side and hums curiously. “How important is important?”

“I… cannot say, I’m sorry, but I’m sure if you tell him—”

“Tell me the truth,” the nurse says quickly. “Whom do you need to see.” Santiago hesitates again, but his posture straightens. The way the nurse is looking at him… it’s like he can see right through Lancelot in every knowing way possible. He hasn’t countered that since… Camelot. Against sorcerers. When the silence lengthens, the nurse sighs and seems mildly disappointed, leans forward to continue his work. “Visiting hours start at nine in the morning, if you wish to come tomo—”

“I’m here to see Merlin,” he blurts, heart racing.

The nurse glances up at him above his glasses, and the grin Lancelot receives is completely too sharp. “Merlin would love to see an old friend, day or night. He’s in room twelve. It’s a private room.”

Lancelot looks down the hall then back at the nurse. “I… I don’t remember you, and I don’t remember much, but thank you.”

“Still so noble Sir Lancelot du Lac.” He waves him off. “Get going.”

The door is closed when Santiago finds 12, and he knocks.

“I took my Ambien,” Merlin loudly groans from inside. “Don’t you have other concerns, Kilgharrah?”

He opens the door and closes it quietly behind him. “My only concern is what you can tell me, Merlin,” Lancelot says, and through the darkness he sees Merlin sit straight up in bed and spin to face him.

“Lancelot! What are you doing here?”

Santiago’s hands are shaking more now. “Merlin, I— I don’t know what’s happened…” he gasps, feeling helpless. “Everything was fine — I knew who I was, I know who I am, but I don’t understand. I saw your face, I heard your voice and heard your name, and all my memories came rushing to me as if I was breaking water’s surface— Angel, Guinevere… She doesn’t know, Arthur doesn’t know, what’s—”

Merlin pats the bed, “Sit down before I have them feed you Xanax. You look like you’re about to have a fit.”

“I am about to have a fit!” But he sits down, facing the sorcerer. Merlin puts a hand on his shoulder, and that bit of comfort helps if only a little. Santiago breathes in deeply a couple times and lets go shakily.

“Would you like some water?”

“No thank you, Merlin,” he answers quietly, shaking his head. “I would like some answers so I can sleep tonight.”

“I don’t know how much help I’d be,” Merlin admits sheepishly, saying the last thing Lancelot wanted to hear. “You’re the first one apart from Kilgharrah who’s remembered on the first go. Him I can understand, being a dragon and a creature of magic.”

Lancelot looks at him sharply. “The nurse is that dragon you talked with in Camelot?” At Merlin’s careful nod, he laughs. “Kind of downsized, hasn’t he?”

“Tell me about it,” Merlin laughs, but quickly sobers. “I can only guess, but without my magic—”

“What’s happened to your magic?”

The once-sorcerer sighs and his arm drops into his lap. “It’s a long story, Lancelot, but the point is I don’t have it anymore. More importantly, however, is how you know.” Merlin peers in close. “You’re the only who knows, not even Morgana remembers. And I use all these big key words like Camelot and Aithusa and magic, but there’s nothing.”

“Is she safe?” Lancelot asks hurriedly. “Are you safe with her around?”

Merlin looks uncertain. “For now, at least.” He waves the thought of her away. “Let’s focus here. We can catch up on others later, and the Ambien has about twenty more minutes until I’m completely useless. You. Know. How.”

Santiago shrugs unhelpfully.

“What’s different about you?”

Another shrug.

“That’s seriously not helping,” he says, deadpan. “You don’t, I don’t know, secretly have magic, do you?”

That surprises a laugh out of him. “If I had magic, I may have been able to get rid of that griffin myself. What do you think, Merlin?”

Merlin grins. “Worth a shot.” Again he sobers quickly, a hand pressed to his mouth. “The only thing…” He hesitates for too long that Lancelot nudges him. “Sorry, but, just… the only thing extraordinary about you is that you died twice. Do you— do you remember?”

Lancelot thinks back. He remembers walking into the portal on Samhain. Then… “Vaguely the second time. I remember my soul feeling released from a prison, and seeing your face.” To his surprise, Merlin wipes at his eyes.

“Yeah,” he croaks. “I— yeah.” After a moment, Merlin says. “I took you to the Lake of A—” He pauses again.

“Think out loud for me, would you?”

“I was thinking maybe being buried at the Lake of Avalon might have had something to do with it, but… both Arthur and Freya are clueless.”

Lancelot stills. “You…buried Arthur?” he asks gently. Merlin quickly wipes his eyes again. “I’m so sorry, Merlin. I wish I had been there.”

“Shut it,” Merlin grumbles, “I’m just getting really tired.” He sighs heavily and looks to the ceiling. “I don’t know, Lancelot. Maybe because magic coursed through your body to keep it alive the second time. Maybe you’re the Once and Future Knight or something. Maybe you’re really damn lucky. Maybe because you’ve been so damn selfless your whole life you’ve been granted with the reward to remember. It’s usually give and take with this mess.”

They sit and think for a few minutes, throwing out ridiculous scenarios, until Merlin starts to doze where he sits, head nodding.

“I’m sorry,” Merlin says quietly. “I know this is really important, but…” He yawns wide and long. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

“Sure, definitely.” Lancelot stands. “I’ll bring Guinevere if she feels up to it.”

“Her brother’s here.”

The knight looks at him. “Elyan? Is he okay?”

“Sort of, I’ll… I’ll explain more later. You weren’t—” _there_.

“Gwaine and the rest?”

“Haven’t seen ‘em. Lemme know if you do.”

Lancelot bows halfway, and before he’s even out the door, Merlin’s slumped over sleeping. He bumps into a CNA as he turns around.

“You’re here late,” she remarks, pushing her brown hair out of her eyes. “Did you sign the visitor’s sheet?”

He squints at her. “Weren’t you here earlier today? Pulling doubles?” he asks, making small talk as he leads them to the nurse’s station.

“Yep,” she says all too cheerfully for overworked and underpaid. “I’m Freya,” she says casually, “but almost everyone else calls me Laura.”

Lancelot stares at her with widening eyes. “You—”

“Shh…” she smiles with a finger over her lips. The Great Dragon appears behind her.

“You look like you have some unanswered questions, Sir Lancelot,” he says, as if he knows exactly what he and Merlin talked about. “Do you have a little time? We have a little time before the next medicine pass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Medical 101:  
> Early-Onset is a type of Alzheimer's that hits young people. Very rare form.  
> Ativan - a strong sedative  
> Xanax - to curb anxiety
> 
>  
> 
> I WANT TO GIVE SPOILERS BUT I CAN'T *POUTING* BUT YAY LANCELOT!


	6. Chapter 6

Bradley releases his sword from the bandit, and he couldn’t help but think they were more disorganized than usual, the bandits. Tripping over roots, not knowing how to draw their weapons properly… The outlanders were getting sloppy; soon there would be nothing to worry about traveling through the Valley of Fallen Kings. Bradley glances over his shoulder at the sound of overgrowth rustling, and he rolls his eyes.

“You can come out now _Mer_ lin, the bad men have been taken care of. No need to swoon like a distressed maiden any longer,” he mocks as Colin busts through the bushes breathless, as if he’d come from his own battle. Bradley raises a speculative eyebrow at him.

“Sorry,” Colin gasps, “I…er, rolled down a hill? Yeah, steep hill to climb back up, you know.”

Bradley shakes his head and beckons Colin to follow him back to the horses. “You’re a wonder, Merlin. It’s a wonder you came this far without breaking your limbs.”

“Oi! I’m not as clumsy as I seem, Arthur!” Colin exclaims, then proceeds to trip over his own feet. The tips of his ears go red as Bradley stands there and watches, incredulous, before grabbing Colin’s arm to tug him along.

“You need a sitter,” Bradley mutters. “A full time sitter that isn’t Gaius.  _He_ actually does his work, unlike a lazy manservant I know.”

“It takes lazy to know lazy, Arthur,” he returns with a cheeky smile, jabbing at him with an elbow to the side where muscle _could have been_ a bit firmer.

“All I have to do is look at you to see you’re slacking on the job, _Mer_ lin.”

There’s a slight pause, a small tremor in Colin’s voice when he speaks again. “Do you, uh, watch me me often?”

Bradley feels like he’s swallowed his tongue, his face growing hot. “I—”

“Because,” Colin rushes on, “If you notice my cleaning, er, methods aren’t…ethical…let me know? In private, rather than making a huge spectacle of it.”

He releases his friend at the horses and looks at him. Like, really looks at him. He’s spouting nonsense again that Bradley doesn’t know what to do with, yet still manages to make him feel guilty for something he doesn’t know happened.

“Your methods are fine,” Bradley finally says as Colin begins to shuffle under his stare. He turns and starts climbing Llamrei. “I was only joking, Merlin. Your work is on par with Madame Brywen. Mm, more or less.” Not to give him _too_ big an ego.

There’s a long exhalation of relief, a huff of laughter. “That’s quite the compliment, Sire.”

“Was it a compliment?” he asks, playing dumb, turning his mare around to look at Colin as he saddled Hengroen. “I thought it more of a critical evaluation.”

“I’ll work on it, Sire,” Colin replies loftily. He trots close and they turn back on the path home.

“I’m sure you will,” Bradley agrees, “as you add kitchen duties to your list this week.”

“You’re kidding!”

Laughing, Bradley takes Llamrei into a gallop, calling behind him, “The Prince of Camelot never jokes around, Merlin! Keep up, now!”

“Arthur!” Colin cries desperately.

*

“You look rather sick this morning,” Katie comments gleefully as Bradley meets her in the lounge. He grunts and shoulders off his work bag before getting some coffee.

“Good morning yourself, McGrath. Are you normally this happy for work?”

The woman smiles brightly. “I am on Fridays.” Ah, it was their Friday, that’s right, with a blessed three day weekend. After that, Bradley will switch to night shift for four nights, with a four day weekend afterward. Rinse and repeat. Katie looks at him with a bit more concern, and asks, “You alright, though?”

He realises he’s staring into his Styrofoam cup and he shakes himself out of it, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly. “Slept badly. I’ll be alright.”

Katie nods in understanding. “I have nightmares almost every night, so I know how that is.” He glances at her curiously as he pours the coffee. She doesn’t look like she’s missed any sleep, no bags beneath her eyes. Either Katie sleeps through her nightmares to morning, or she’s had them for quite a long time.

“You missed a spot with your makeup,” he teases, twirling a finger around his whole face.

She slaps his arm with a laugh. “Prat.”

“Witch,” he returns.

“Careful,” Katie says with a smirk. “I’ll curse you, then Camelot won’t have a King Arthur any longer.”

Bradley groans, feeling uncomfortable with the joking after his dream. One of those dreams that seem too real, and have to question where he is in the first few seconds of waking up. “Can I go one day without you lot going on about that?”

“It’s not like you’re the only one that gets it, Bradley,” she says with a shrug. “It’s the running theme. People say that even long before Colin Morgan was admitted, staff would go around donning names.”

“Great.” He looks at the clock and sighs. “Might as well head to report.”

“After you, Your Majesty.”

“Quit that.”

Tony is the last to enter, expression displeased. “Before we get into the night’s events,” he says, looking over each of them, “I want to remind everyone the hospital’s annual review is coming by the end of the month. I will not accept any fall backs this year, do you understand?” The DON waits for a collective affirmative before continuing. “I don’t want to get the report back from the Council saying my nurses are doing a piss-poor job. Again.”

It makes Bradley wonder if he’s taken the position of someone fired.

“RNs, administer the drugs on time, and never before. Measure the patient’s pain for PRN medication. LPNs, help the RNs when needed and watch the care provided by the CNAs. According to you nurses, all the CNAs passed their annual assessment last month, so there shouldn’t be lacking in that department.” Tony stares down a couple nurses - like John, Richard, and Katie, but when they don’t even squirm Tony nods, satisfied. “I want Camelot to be running in top condition when they come.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Katie salutes mockingly.

“None of that King Arthur shit,” Tony demands with such a fierceness that it startles Bradley. From the pass few days, he seemed relaxed and uncaring about the trend around the hospital, going as far to introduce Katie as Morgana. Though, Bradley amends, he never encouraged it. “I don’t want the Council to think we’re all going nutters because some patient getting in our heads.

“I know you’re a good bunch,” he says, softer. “Prove it to me before they get here. Don’t answer to those names Morgan calls you all. Correct him at every turn.” Which was exactly what Bradley had been doing, thank you very much. “I want to talk to you later in my office, Richard. John, the report.”

As Richard raises that eyebrow even higher, John goes through report with each patient. It was a quiet night; no abnormalities in vital signs and blood sugars. No one refused medication, and they slept soundlessly.

“And as I’m sure you know, Laura won’t be here today,” John ends. “Have you called someone in to cover her?”

“Bradley will pick up the duties when it gets busy,” Tony replies, looking at the LPN. Bradley nods.

*

Right after report, Richard counts meds with John, gets his coffee, then stares at the closed DON officer door. With a sigh, he knocks before walking in. “You wished to speak with me, Anthony?” Anthony holds up a hand as he finishes writing, then he drops his pen and looks up at him.

“Shut the door behind you,” he says and gestures to the seat across from him. Richard does as asked and takes the chair, not looking away from his supervisor. “The Council will be here for about three days. In that time, can we do anything about Colin Morgan?”

Richard purses his lips, not liking where this is headed. He asks slowly, “How do you mean?”

“The boy takes antidepressants,” Anthony says. “Cut him off that week.”

“Sir!” he exclaims, not believing his hears.

“I won’t have Morgan making a fool of us. We’ve given too much leeway already to his behavior. I don’t want to see him while they’re here.”

Richard stammers. “B-but, Anthony, it’s not his fault. He suffers from multiple delusions—”

“Does he really?” Anthony interrupts. “When he entered here as young teen no therapist could diagnose any problems. He was completely sane; we didn’t understand why he was brought to Camelot. Until he met you, do you remember? You returned from vacation, and when Morgan laid eyes on you, he calls you… what is it… _Gaius_. It wasn’t until he met you that he started calling himself Merlin. Then I was suddenly Uther Pendragon, though Morgan called me by name before. Why then? Why start creating delusions then? What did his primary therapist see that none of our specialists had to land him here? We medicated him, but there was nothing he responded to.

“And in case if it’s escaped your notice, Morgan has named the majority of the staff that works directly with him, plus a few patients. Why no one else? It’s a controlled experimentation and the boy is playing us. His depression may be real, but everything else is complete bollocks.”

“Why don’t you request to have him transferred to a different facility?” Richard asks. “That’s better than playing with his meds.”

Anthony stands abruptly, and is close to yelling, “You don’t think I’ve tried? For the first five years I’ve tried to get rid of him, but either the faxes fail to send out or other places suddenly don’t have enough room.” He moves to his office window and looks outside, continuing quieter, “Morgan may be harmless, but there’s a bigger scheme here than we know. Drop his meds that week, Richard, or there will be hell to pay. He won’t suffer greatly without them.”

The smart thing, Richard knows, is to turn Anthony in for wanting to withhold medication, and as soon as he gets the chance he will. “I’ll see that it is done, sir,” he says instead, to get the conversation over as quickly as possible.

“Then that is all, Richard, thank you.” Anthony says, as he turns to face him, “I knew I could depend on you, old friend.”

Richard closes the door behind him again as he leaves with a sigh and troubled mind, and runs straight into John, who’s eyes crinkle at the sides as he smiles at him. “You have a couple minutes before med pass, _old friend_ ; let’s take a walk. Miss McGrath can handle the floor.”

*

Kilgharrah took Gaius in the back gardens available to the patients, where it was voided of people.

“You heard, then,” Gaius starts when he was sure they were alone. “I’m not following through with it. I only agreed to get him to stop talking; I’ll be talking with the Council about this. You can back up my story.”

Kilgharrah put a hand on the physician’s shoulder to stop him, to have him face him. “I will not,” he replies.

Gaius’s eyes grow wide. “But—”

“You will not call the Council,” Kilgharrah drives on, definite. Merlin may not have magic, but it wasn’t to be said the same for him. “You will do exactly as he says.”

“I don’t understand, John, what’s the matter with you?”

Perhaps he was a bit rusty. Kilgharrah’s eyes flash gold for only a second, but he’s satisfied when Gaius’s gaze becomes unfocused.

“You will not tell the Council,” he repeats himself, “and you’ll cut Mer— Morgan off his antidepressants. You were told to do this for a reason, and events are unfolding as they should. This is alright. Mr. Morgan can survive a week without his medication, don’t you agree?”

“He can,” Gaius says, “but it isn’t right.”

Gods, his willpower was as strong as ever. Kilgharrah huffs under his breath. “No, it’s not right, and if it were for another reason entirely I’d help you turn in that tyrant. Mr. Morgan will be fine. He’ll be down and seclude himself to his room. If it becomes too much, I will give him his antidepressants during night shift. That way His Royal Majesty won’t blame you. Does that sound fair?”

Gaius shuffles uncomfortably, and Kilgharrah flashes his eyes again until the physician subdues. “I… yes, it’s fair.”

“Do you understand not to give Mr. Morgan his medication?”

“Yes.”

Kilgharrah smiles. “Then we are finished talking. I’ve got sleep to catch. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Good night.”

*

There were two CNAs on the floor today, Rachel and Elizabeth, and while they were able to get everyone awake and prepared for breakfast in the day room, they were a bit shorthanded when it came to helping the patients eat. There were two feeding tables, macaroni shaped, close together and at the tables sat eight. The girls handled three and four stubborn patients each, while Bradley tried to convince the last to eat. One of which was Adetomiwa.

Adetomiwa was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and he stares at his food with distrust.

“Breakfast,” Bradley says, “is the most important meal of the day. You should eat.”

Adetomiwa doesn’t say anything.

Rachel nudges him and he looks over his shoulder at her. “You have to take a bite first. It’s the only way he’ll eat it.”

Bradley blinks and flounders a bit. “Well, you got another set of silver?”

“You eat it from his set.”

“Infection control—”

“He won’t do it any other way,” she says with a shrug. “We’ve tried.”

“That’s not going to pass with the Council when they get here.”

Rachel shrugs again. “I’m willing to get written up for it if it’ll mean Adetomiwa eats for the day.” Bradley stares at her for a moment before smiling softly.

“You take risks for these people. How long have you worked here?” he asks, looking back at the patient’s tray. There’s sausage links, scrambled eggs, English muffin, and sliced melon. He cuts up a sausage into bites and makes an exaggerated show of eating it, Adetomiwa watching him closely for the chew and swallow. It’s under seasoned but edible.

“That’s it,” Rachel encourages. “You give him the fork now until he stops eating. When he’s ready to try something else, he’ll put it down.” Following her instruction, Adetomiwa takes the offered utensil from Bradley’s hand, and Bradley feels a swell of pride of learning about the patients he’s serving, doing something as little as getting someone to eat makes him feel useful. He should get on the floor more often instead of waiting for the next time he needs to pass medication. “And I’ve been here almost three years; I’ll risk everything for this lot. It may be unprofessional, but these guys are a second family,” she says fondly. “Drink slowly, Sam, you know that.”

Bradley opens the pint of milk, nodding. “What did you learn in class?” He catches the patient’s eye and knocks back a mouthful. Adetomiwa chews slowly, but inclines his head.

“To remove my emotions and personal feelings,” she replies, and Bradley nods again because he remembers that lesson. “I tried that for the first six months, but it didn’t work. I’m an involved lass. I’m either in it all the way or not at all, and they kinda grow on you, ya know? When you’re around these people for eight hours a day five days a week, you stop looking at them with detached feelings.

“If they want professional care, I will _care_.”

Bradley smiles. “I’m glad to work with you, then.”

Adetomiwa sets down his fork, but reaches over and pokes Bradley’s upper lip. It’s Elizabeth who laughs, able to see it. “You’ve got a milk-stache.” Adetomiwa’s lips twitch slightly, leaning back again.

“I suppose I should wipe my mouth before I use your fork then, huh?” Bradley grins. He uses the patient’s napkin while Adetomiwa picks up the milk and sips at it. “Let’s see. English muffin? Eggs?”

There isn’t any answer.

“Melon?” Still nothing, so Bradley figures he doesn’t care and gathers some eggs and takes a bite. They’re completely unseasoned, not even salted. He asks out loud, “The eggs are rather sad. Does he take them with salt or anything?”

“Pepper, and a little salt on the fruit,” Colin says out of nowhere. Bradley spins around in his stool, and Colin is sitting in the middle of the three of them on the last stool. He didn’t even hear him approach. Bradley scowls and turns back to his task.

“Hey there, Merlin,” Elizabeth says distractedly.

“What are you doing, Morgan?” There a single serving packets of salt, pepper, and generic jam and Bradley seasons the food accordingly. Adetomiwa doesn’t take the fork, so Bradley takes another bite of the peppered eggs. He takes it then.

“Merlin,” he corrects.

“Colin.”

“Whatever,” Colin huffs. “We can go on all day about that. I just came over to observe how you’re doing.”

“Did you eat?” Rachel asks quickly. There’s a pause that seems awkward and Bradley looks over his shoulder at him. Colin’s ducked his head sheepishly. Rachel’s looking at him disapprovingly. “Colin. You need something on your stomach.”

“I’ll get something later?”

With a frown, he turns back to Adetomiwa who’s still eating his eggs slowly, watching him. Bradley recalls idly that Adetomiwa takes oral medication; is there a difference between food and medication to him? He understands it’s generally not a good idea for schizophrenics to be hooked up to IVs.

“Probably not until lunch,” she remarks bitterly.

“Probably, yeah,” Colin says, and it sounds like he’s smiling.

Adetomiwa finishes up his eggs and sausage, drinks more of his milk. Bradley takes one of the muffin halves and asks, “Does he take jam?”

“Yeah,” Colin and Elizabeth answer, but Colin goes on to say, “Elyan has a big sweet-tooth.”

“Adetomiwa.”

“Elyan.”

“Colin.”

“Merlin.”

“Bradley.”

“Arthur.”

“Rachel.”

“Rachel,” Colin agrees. Bradley glances at him as he spreads the jam, takes a bite of it before handing it over. Colin is looking at him earnestly. He puts jam on the other half and sets it back on the plate, but the patient picks it up with one hand and stands, leaning to reach over Bradley. Adetomiwa hands the muffin half to Colin who seems taken back.

“Th-thank you,” Colin says, eyes wide. He nibbles at the edges without looking away.

Adetomiwa swallows his mouthful, and says softly, “You’re welcome.”

Rachel and Elizabeth stop feeding to stare.

“He’s never…” Elizabeth trails off.

“Yeah,” the other agrees.

Katie comes over at that moment shaking a pill cup. “Mr. Edun, time for your morning medication.” She sets it on his tray and waits for him to be finished eating. He inspects each pill before throwing them in his mouth and swallowing them down with milk.

“Thank you,” he says, then resumes eating. The CNAs stare a little longer before turning back to their tasks.

“No problem,” Katie smiles and plucks the cup from his tray. She nods at Bradley. “Doing okay, greenie?”

“No better than you,” he grins. “TGIF?”

“TGIF,” she sighs longingly before heading to the next patient. Colin pokes him in the side.

“It’s your Friday? How many days off?”

Bradley bites into each different melon the kitchen set up on the tray. “Three. I’ll be back for night shift when I come back.”

“You’ll be working with Kilgharrah, then.”

Bradley looks at him. “Who?”

“He means John Hurt,” Rachel supplies helpfully.

Who the hell is Kilgharrah? Bradley might not have taken any special attention to the legends, the bigger plotlines only, but at least he knows the names - and Kilgharrah? Elyan and Leon? Freya? Not in them. He doesn’t understand where Colin is pulling these made-up characters from. Perhaps there was a certain story Bradley’s missing?

_ “By word of mouth the truth was twisted even further.” _

Nope. Nopenopenope.

“I suppose I will,” he says, slightly strangled. Colin gives him a strange look that he ignores.

*

Lancelot surprises him by clapping a hand on his shoulder while he’s sitting watching a footie match with Will. Merlin’s not big in modern day sports, views them a bit more pointless than the tourneys Camelot held, but Will seemed to be quiet most of the day — which isn’t a good sign, so Merlin did as much as a friend could and sit close and let him chose the channels.

“Lancelot!” Merlin says happily and makes room on the couch for him. Will grunts and looks over.

“Another one, eh?” he mutters.

“Will, this is Lancelot. Lancelot, Will.”

Will shakes his head. “I’m Joe,” he tells the knight. “Colin’s a bit mental.” He looks around obviously and says, “ _Obviously_.”

Lancelot smiles politely. “You can call me Santiago.” He sits and focuses on Merlin, whispering softly between them. “Sorry I couldn’t bring Guinevere. Not only was she called into work, but she’s rather uncomfortable coming. You made quite the first impression.”

Merlin becomes sheepish and he ducks his head. “I— yeah, I got excited. I always…” He sighs, looks up at the ceiling. “I always expect you all to know. It’s like…seeing a friend from school you lost touch with for years. I’m that friend that always remembers and gets overly excited to catch up while the other is struggling to remember my name. Wait, that’s exactly the problem now,” Merlin says sarcastically. He huffs out a breath of laughter, “I should have told her I was in disguise.”

“What?”

“Old joke,” Merlin laughs louder. “A really, really old joke at this point. What does Gwen do these days?”

Lancelot smiles again. “She works part-time in an organic grocery. Minimum wages, but she and Arthur worked out a deal on how to split the flat.” He glances around. “Where is he, anyway?”

Merlin looks at the clock. “He’ll be back from lunch in about ten minutes. Are you — have you told them yet?”

The knight’s eyes widen. “The truth? I can’t, Merlin.”

A cold numbness seizes his heart, a knife twisting his gut. He stares at him for a long moment before forcing out, “What do you mean _you can’t_.” It’s not a question. It’s a demand to understand. Lancelot at least has the decency to look the slightest bit guilty, but it doesn’t stop Merlin for hating him a little at this point.

“Look what they’ve done to you, Merlin,” Lancelot says, kind and reasonable. “You’re stuck here. If I started declaring I’m a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, where do you think that’ll land me? I’m better use to you outside, to look for Gwaine and the others, am I not? Besides,” he presses on when Merlin opens his mouth, giving him that no buts expression, “The Dragon told me that I’m not allowed.”

Merlin gapes. “Kilgharrah said that? Why? When did you talk to him, last night?”

“I did,” Lancelot nods. “I tried to ask questions about your magic to help you, but he kept overriding me. He told me to stay out of the way and that things were falling into place as they should.”

“What else did he say? Never mind my magic, does he know how you—”

“Keep it down,” Will hisses suddenly, urgent. “Morgana’s comin’ over. Don’t let the damn nobles you work for overhear you talkin’ about magic, Mer—” Merlin’s heart leaps in his chest and runs overtime as he and Lancelot both stare at Will who is staring at his lap. His fists clench and unclench on his knees. “ _Katie_. Her name is _fucking Katie_. You are _fucking Colin_.”

“Will—” Merlin tries to say, something - anything - to comfort his friend. He knows what’s coming next. Lancelot, as if he knows, puts a hand on Merlin’s arm, ready to pull him away from Will before he explodes.

“ _I’m fucking Joe_!” he exclaims, standing up and pointing at Merlin with a shaking finger, a shaking hand — hell, everything about him is shaking. Morgana pauses in her steps, not too far from them, before calling over her shoulder, “Richard!”

“You’re poisonous, Colin!” Will spits, and Merlin goes stock-still. He’s pretty sure he’s stopped breathing. “I were doin’ okay! I were doing okay before I met ya, at least! I’ve been sober!” Morgana pulls his arm down, trying to talk over him, but Merlin can’t hear anything else but his yelling. “Then ya start whisperin’ these things, these ideas that make me start dreamin’ shite about a family I never had, that I wish I didn’t remember because I have _two alive_ parents again Colin! What am I supposed to do ‘bout one set of dead parents, _what am I supposed to feel_?”

Gaius comes out of nowhere in Merlin’s vision, so focused on Will, and both he and Morgana are struggling to hold Will back from approaching any further, and the commotion has caused the attention of CNAs and Uther.

“Ativan 20mg stat!” someone shouts.

“Ativan? Geodon!”

Will’s being forced to the ground, he’s strong, and a hand grips Merlin’s jeans. He’s crying. For the first time since his father’s armor was sent back to Ealdor, Will is crying. “You’ve injected this whole other personality inta me, mate, I don’t know what to do— I died and left me mum, Merlin! Were she okay? Has she come back as well? What ‘bout me da? Were _you_ okay, ya fucking plonker? I were so scared Merlin, for everyone— and all ya seemed ta care ‘bout were hidin’ ya fucking _magic_ from ya bloody sensitive prince!”

“What in the hell is going on here?!” It’s Arthur, who’s immediately taking stance behind Merlin, arms wrapping protectively under his arms and over his chest, ready to yank him backwards off the couch and away from Will. Merlin scrabbles to hold on, inhaling unevenly and heavily like he might go into shock. Lancelot is froze, watching the train wreck.

“Manic episode,” King Uther explains loudly, taken over Gaius’s position to hold Will back. The CNAs are trying to urge Will to calm down. “Richard’s going to the pharmacy for Geodon!”

“Jesus, can we get him out of here?”

“And _you_!” Will hounds on Arthur. “How can ya actually go ‘round callin’ him the wrong name! By as much as you had him at your bloody hand an’ knee — _Merlin_ this _Merlin_ that _Mer_ lin — ya really are a shit noble, aren’t ya? No wonder ya don’t remember—”

“Hold on now,” Lancelot gets quick to defend.

Merlin finally finds his voice and kicks his jeans out of Will’s grip. “Say shite on me, but don’t you dare turn this on Arthur! He damn saved Ealdor! He saved your mum from them bandits, you were there! And yeah, maybe I were pushin’ you, of course I were, Will! You’re me best mate! I’m not gonna let you go, not again, not when you would do the same for me!”

“Merlin,” he says desperately, voice going high, “You don’t understand, there’re _two_ of me — how can you stand it! I _don’t underst_ OWGODDAMN WOMAN GET OFF MY BLOODY SPINE!”

“I’m about to take Morgan _in two seconds I swear to God_ ,” Arthur shouts.

“Do it already!” Uther demands.

“WAIT!” Merlin and Will shout nearly at the same time. Will coughs, breathing strained, “Just tell me how ya did it Merlin, how am I supposed to be me, who am I supposed to be now?!”

“You’re Will! You’ll always be Will, you bloody idiot!”

“But me mum and da—”

“They’re your parents!”

“They’re Joe’s parents!”

Merlin growls in frustration. “I don’t know, then! Live the life you want, but don’t you dare give up on me!”

“What the fuck do you mean _you don’t know?!_ ”

“ _I never died!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun, dun DUUUUN.  
> Everyone is starting to act like themselves~~~
> 
> Meds 101:  
> Geodon is a sedative, a level above Ativan. It's used to ease manic episodes in schizo and bi-polar patients.
> 
> 3/13/15: two weekish hiatus, I know I was posting so quick, but I'm working thirty hours overtime. oh yay, and at this point I say Rachel is practically my personal feelings about work, but it's not like I want to _live_ at work... see you all later!


	7. Chapter 7

“Hi, this is Bradley James, LPN,” he introduces himself over the phone to a woman who picked up, “from Camelot Mental Health Institute. We need to have a patient sent to you for medicinal correction— I… No.” He glances at Anthony, who’s standing at the counter. “No, the patient isn’t Colin Morgan.”

Anthony rolls his eyes and his mouth sets in a hard line.

“Joe Dempsie, male, twenty-four,” Bradley answers when the woman asks. “He’s having delusions, and we’d like him reevaluated. We can send you the faxes of his medical history,” he says as he points to Katie. She’s already on it though, waving him off, and sliding the paper through the machine. “Currently? Type one Bipolar Disorder, recovering alcoholic. The only medication he’s taking is Lithium 1000mg per day. … No, he’s not on any antipsychotic; they didn’t have any effect during his manic episodes.”

“When?” He looks at Anthony, who taps his watch. “As soon as possible. Oh. Oh! Well, yes, that should be fine, thank you. We’ll see you tomorrow.” He hangs up the phone and says to his boss, “Tomorrow morning, five-thirty.”

“Perfect,” Anthony nods. “The sooner the better. I want them separated.”

There wasn’t much more separation they could do after putting Joe in isolation.

After Colin’s shout, everyone looked at him in a couple seconds of silence. There’s no way, Bradley had thought, and he finally pulled Colin over the couch, ignoring Dempsie’s yelling to bring him back. He frogmarched the patient straight to his room, deposited him on the bed.

“You alright,” Bradley had asked. “Colin—”

“Go away.” Colin curled up and turned over on his side, his back to Bradley. Having no choice to respect the patient’s wishes, Bradley reminded him to use the call light if he needed anything at all. He wasn’t given a response.

“Always something on Friday,” Katie mutters.

Bradley hums.

*

Lancelot hears the car door shut. He turns his head and kisses Guinevere’s temple, whispers, “Bradley’s home.”

She looks at him after another moment watching the film. “I guess I should get dinner started then,” she says, eyes flicking to the screen. Lancelot smiles lightly at her willingness to not take a break once in a while. It was supposed to be her only day off for the week; they were supposed to have lunch together and watch the film back at her flat, plenty of time before Bradley got off shift, but she hadn’t gotten off until nearly five. If Gwen’s tired, she’s not showing it.

“I’ll get it started. You’ve wanted to watch this for a while,” he says, standing. “The chicken in the fridge, right?”

Gwen takes his hand and she smiles brightly at him. “You’re so good to me.”

The door opens and closes a bit firmer than necessary as Lancelot’s bending over to give her a kiss. He squeezes her hand. “Watch the film,” he returns gently and looks up at Arthur who’s watching them with a tight expression. Lancelot steps around the couch and goes into the kitchen, beckoning Arthur to follow him. He’s had the afternoon to make up a reason why he was at the hospital if Arthur asks, which he’s almost positive he will. He remembers the curious gaze as he tried to leave without being noticed.

The declaration startled everyone, him included. How was it possible that Merlin continued living all these years? Did his magic keep him alive? But that couldn’t be right; Merlin didn’t have magic now; what happened to it?

Lancelot pulls out a skillet from the cabinet and the chicken breasts from the fridge. He hears Arthur behind him, and Lancelot angels his body not to only invite Arthur to talk with him, but to gauge his reactions and movements.

“What were you doing there, Santiago?” Arthur asks him right off the bat.

Thank goodness he was prepared. “Looking for you. Angel wanted your opinion for dinner. She would have called you but she was called in at the market.” He heats the pan and salts the bottom before placing the chicken.

“She was? Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t have your number, Bradley, and I don’t suspect you’d appreciate a call from me at your work phone. You barely tolerate me as it is, but I can’t be sorry.” He pauses as he seasons the chicken with pepper. “I would do anything for her and whatever makes her happy. You make her happy, Bradley, I hope you realise that. Because you make her happy, I want to know you better. Other than my tour, why do you think I haven’t asked her to move in with me? I know you could afford this place on your pension, but she wouldn’t move anywhere without you. She’s told me she wouldn’t go anywhere without you there. I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to go out for drinks.”

“Did she say that word for word?” From the corner of his eye, Lancelot sees Arthur look where Guinevere’s settled on the couch.

“What she really said is that you’re her best friend and she’d hate to lose you,” Lancelot says, glancing over his shoulder at his king. “So I really want to know what kind of man you are, if you’re worth her devotion.” If you’re still the same man I knew you as.

“I could say the same about you, Santiago.”

That makes Lancelot laugh. “You can quiz me all you like.”

“Thanks, but I mean,” he hesitates a moment. “You make her happy. She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her when she’s with you. I couldn’t do that.”

The knight turns and faces him. “If I hadn’t shown up, she’d probably have fallen in love with you in time. She loves you, in a way that would bother another man to see such a close friendship, but she’s a loving woman.”

“You aren’t afraid?” Arthur raises a brow at him.

Lancelot raises a brow in return. “Would I ever doubt my trust in Guin—” He quickly coughs to hide his mistake. “In Angel? Pardon, the pepper makes me delicate.”

Despite himself, Arthur huffs out a laugh and his arms drop to his sides. “Delicate, right. You have a point there; no one should doubt her. She’s very loyal.” He shuffles hesitantly before jerking his chin toward the stove. “Let me wash up and I’ll help you there. It’s officially my weekend so I expect you to stay true to your word about those drinks.” He grins and leaves the room, stopping behind Guinevere.

“Hey, how was your day?”

“Don’t bother getting up, Angel. You’re missing the best part,” Arthur says, pointing at the film just as something explodes. “We’ll talk about work later.” He gives her a kiss on her head and dodges her next questions by quickly going down the hall, fingers in his ears. She throws a couch pillow after him, and Lancelot smiles. He has no worries.

*

“Can I ask you something of extreme confidentiality, Merlin?” Bradley asks his manservant quietly. He turns away from the window where in the courtyard the funeral fires have finally died into embers. Angel had come inside the castle a little while ago, but he hasn’t seen her, nor has he went to sought her out. Her time of mourning should be for her only; he’ll be here when she’s ready.

Colin’s watching him expectantly even as he continues to pull down the bed. Noticing he’s waiting for verbal confirmation, Colin says, “Of course, Sire. What is it that you need?” Bradley waits for him to finish his chore, not wanting Colin to find a distraction for a lie.

“It’s nothing that I need,” he finally continues after a moment when Colin comes to stand by him. He swallows a lump in his throat, hesitating slightly. He’s been thinking about it for such a long while, but now he needs an answer despite how much it will hurt. “If Sir Lancelot had still been here…” Bradley swallows again, this time to hold back emotion from losing a dear friend. “If my father didn’t banish Lancelot from Camelot, would… could Guinevere still have been happy?”

Colin’s gaze moves to the window, expression solemn. Colin is missing him as much as Bradley is.

He waits too long, though. “There’s no way to—”

“Merlin,” he says sternly. He wants his honest opinion.

“Nah,” Colin breathes out. His tone is light, trying to make it sound like it didn’t matter, _but it does_. He doesn’t look at him, but Bradley sees his eyes getting wet. He knows he’s lying to make Bradley feel better, but it’s only making heart hurt worse. “He would have still been a knight, yeah? He still would have… he still would have died to protect you. Gwen would understand, but she’d… she’d be worse off.”

Bradley wipes at his own eyes. He clears his throat. “That’s not what I asked, Merlin. Despite… these circumstances, could Guinevere have been happy with Lancelot?”

Colin bows his head and his shoulders begin to shake. His hand comes up to hide his face. “Yes, Arthur,” he chokes out, “th-they would have been.”

He acts without thought and grabs Colin by the shoulder and spins him around, holding him close. Colin is a couple inches taller than he is, but his head is still ducked and it tucks under Bradley’s chin. His fists clench in his tunic and his sounds become wetter. Bradley wraps his arms around his shoulders and buries his face in Colin’s hair as he talks quietly between them. Mourning is a time of weakness.

“H-he died to keep her happy. Guinevere said…that she asked him to—” Bradley’s throat is too thick to speak, and his eyes prickle with tears.

“It’s not your fault, Arthur,” Colin tells him, and even if his voice carries sadness he speaks with conviction. “I could have saved him, I could have—”

No he couldn’t. No one could. “I’m sorry, Merlin,” he whispers against Colin’s head, his arms squeezing him tighter, “I’m so sorry. I won’t let it happen again. I swear it.” _No one will die for me again._

*

Merlin surprises the Dragon at the desk, fifteen minutes to five-thirty. He’s dressed and slightly out of breath, having lost track of time while thinking. When the CNAs told him what was to become of Will, Merlin had stayed up all night fretting about his condition. Is this how Lancelot was going to turn out eventually, or Gwen? Gods damn him now if Arthur was going to lose his mind if— _when_ he remembered?

“Is Will still in his room?”

Kilgharrah narrows his eyes at the sorcerer. “You didn’t take your Ambien, did you.”

“Why do you ask questions that aren’t questions when you the answer to them? Is Will in his room?”

With a sigh, Kilgharrah says, “He is packing his belongings.” He waves his hand to shoo him off. “Hurry now, they’re on their way, and he’s supposed to be out there waiting five minutes till.”

Merlin rushes down the hall to room twenty. He knocks gently because Will’s roommate, an elderly man, is still sleeping. Will peeks around the curtain separating the beds and sighs at the sight of him.

“While you’re there you can get my clothes out of the closet,” he tells Merlin. Merlin gives him a long look before doing what he’s told; he’s not sure what he’s going to be met with. He opens the small closet and unhooks the hangers from the line, folding the outfits over his arm, and deposits them on Will’s bed.

“You alright?” Merlin asks carefully.

Will gives him a look. “Stop walking on eggshells, mate. You know who I am.”

“Do you know who you are?”

It’s a moment before he answers, taking the clothes off the hangers and folding them to fit in a duffelbag provided by the facility. When he does talk, he says, “I’m Joe Dempsie, but I’m also William of Ealdor.”

“How do you mean?”

“Kind of like a past life, ain’t it?” Will says with a shrug. Merlin wouldn’t know. “Not like I can continue being Will in this day of age. Will’s gone, but Joe’s here. I’ll answer to Will because I can’t deny who I was, right? I can’t deny that I was once a farmer because I’ve memories of it, but I was also a student that dropped out of school to drink and party my way through London. The name on my records is Joseph.”

“So…” Merlin trails, not really following.

“So, if you need Will, I’m here for you, Merlin,” he says as he finishes and zips up the bag. “Otherwise, I’m Joe. Is that fair?”

Merlin bites his lip. It’s not like he could ask him to drop his life. He may want to, but… “Yeah,” he agrees softly. “That’s fair.”

“Speaking of fair,” Will says, feigning affronted, “you never got my name in them books!”

It brings a smile to his face. “You didn’t plow enough fields,” but he shakes his head. “Don’t pay the legends any mind. They’re all wrong. I swear I tried to say something about it, but Geoffrey never liked me too much.”

Will sits down on the bed, scooting over his bag to make room for Merlin, too. Merlin sits close, his hands in his lap. “Tell me about it?” he asks quietly. “About what happened after the stories? How old _are you_ , mate?”

Merlin sighs long, tired. “Long over a thousand. As for what happened… well, the kingdom fell after a handful of generations. I was Court Sorcerer—”

“Get out, in Camelot!”

“Haha, yeah, Court Sorcerer in Camelot, but nature and wars took over. Religion started pouring in. Magic was seen as miracles of Jesus Christ. I brushed it off once, just once, said sure why not. Believe what you want to, right? The White Goddess bit me in the arse for that. She took away the grain and plagued the animals until I made amends. Because I couldn’t deny where I got my magic from, I was fired from my position. Been told to leave under penalty of death because I was a heretic.” He sighs again, remembering the regretful expression on the king’s face. “They didn’t want to kill me, they knew how long I’ve been there and who I were, but the missionaries didn’t. That was the reign of Gwen’s great-great grandson, and after I left… I watched the kingdom destroy itself from afar.”

“Blimey, Merlin,” Will says. “I couldn’t be you.”

Merlin shakes his head. “I didn’t feel bad for it. I’ve seen it coming for a while, then. It was sad to see my home fall apart, but all my friends and the people I loved… My destiny was fulfilled. I had to look toward the future, yeah? I was told by Kilgharrah — by our nurse, by the way, he’s a dragon —”

“You’re having me on now.”

“— that Arthur will rise again. Once and Future King, you know? Each war, I’d go to Avalon to see if Arthur would come, but he never did. I got sick of the wars, too. The leaders nowadays… I’m sick of hearing their voices and seeing their images and destruction they create. They’re no better than Lot or Cenred, some of them even worse. I stayed in Avalon for a long time, watching and waiting for Arthur.”

“What happened to your magic?” Will asks. “Does this fit in anywhere?”

Merlin contemplates this. “My magic and Arthur? No, they were separate events.” He extends his right hand and tries to draw out the magic that had always come so willing to him but comes up with blanks. “I am magic, but the Goddess took my ability when the witch hunts started. Something about cleansing the land, and She hasn’t given it back. I guess when She’s ready I’ll have it back.” He hums. “I did feel an echo of it, though. When Arthur returned. The Earth… The Earth sang, Will, you should’ve heard it. It were the most marvelous thing I ever experienced.”

“I don’t have an ear for music, but I believe you. When do you think this goddess bird will give you back your magic? I mean, it’s yours, Merlin.”

“Er, kind of?” Merlin laughs slightly, a hand behind his neck in uncertainty. “I’m magic. My magic is me. But all magic belongs to Earth and the White Goddess.”

Will raises his eyebrow and leans back from him. “You saying you’re severing gods now?”

“It’s weird when you put it that way, mate,” Merlin laughs stronger, but still mindful of the roommate. “I don’t know when, but She better have it ready for me if I’m to protect Albion again.” He stares at his friend for a long moment, expression going thoughtful. “Something’s happening Will. I don’t know what or where, but Arthur’s been brought back for a reason. Everyone’s here for a reason, and I want to be ready.”

“Call me if you need me, alright? I’m here for you, Merlin.” He glances to the clock. “I’ve gotta head out now, mate. Give me a call every now and then. I’m sure you could.” He stands and picks up his bag and slings it over his shoulder. He looks down at Merlin who’s still sitting. “Take care, mate. I shouldn’t be gone for long. There ain’t nothing wrong.” Will sticks out his hand.

“Bloody idiot,” Merlin mutters, and he surges up and hugs Will tightly. “Thanks Will. Thanks for everything.”

“Thank you Merlin.”

*

“Come on, Angel,” Bradley singsongs. “You’ve been on your feet all day, and it’s my first day off. We both deserve a couple bottles of beer, or er, something fruity?” Santiago is smirking at him behind her back as he shrugs on his jacket.

Angel laughs at him. “At a sports bar.” She raises her eyebrow.

“I’ll order a fruity drink if you do,” Santiago says. She pats him on the arm and smiles at them both.

“I’ll go the next time,” she promises. “Consider it a man’s night out.”

The ride to the bar is fairly short and they take their own vehicles. Bradley lets Santiago lead the way since he’s not too familiar with the area, and soon they’re parking at a place called Phoenix. It looks decent, and there seems quite a crowd inside if the noise level outside is anything to go by.

“So this is your tab, right, mate?” Bradley asks as they get inside.

Santiago laughs. “You’re sadly mistaken, _mate_.”

They stand at the bar for only a few moments before a very tall, and very muscular man with shaved blond hair greets them. “What can I get you blokes?”

“IPA for me,” Bradley answers, leaning against the bar. He glances pointedly to Santiago, who seems to have lost his tongue. Santiago is staring at the bartender in a daze before he shakes his head of whatever he was thinking and orders the same with a slight strangled sound. The bartender nods and goes down the bar.

“You’re not his type,” a man says out of nowhere. Bradley and Santiago spin around and the man with dark shaggy hair and a beard grins widely at them both, holding out his arms, one hand holding a pint. “Long time no see, boys,” he says with a drunken slur. Bradley raises his eyebrows; he’s never met this man in his life. He looks at Santiago, expecting to see him reel away from the drunk man, but he’s actually gaping.

“Gwaine!” Santiago shouts with a laugh. He suddenly side-glances Bradley, and he sees the elated emotion close again. “Bradley, this is my friend from… uni. Gwaine, this is Bradley.”

Gwaine tips his head to the side and studies Bradley with more scrutiny than a drunken man should have. “Pleasure to meet you, Bradley. Most folks call me Eoin these days. Gwaine was a… nickname this one called me, for whatever reason.” He gestures his hand at Santiago, and Bradley hums.

“Nice to meet you, Eoin.” Calling the man Gwaine sounds too much like what he deals with at work, so he rather not be inside that joke. Santiago embraces the man, whispering something in his ear, in which Eoin glances at Bradley. Bradley stiffens.

“IPA,” the bartender says behind them. He grabs their ales and hands one to Santiago when he detaches himself from Eoin.

Eoin makes kissy faces at the man. “You owe me your number, Hopper.”

“When you pay your tab, then maybe,” Hopper replies with a shy grin as he goes to tend other customers.

Eoin sighs and sips his beer, but looks at Bradley hopefully. “Surely you can help a poor man.” Santiago chokes on his drink.

“Don’t be daft,” Bradley says with a eyeroll. “Your tab must have something ridiculous on it, like four dozen pickled eggs.”

To his surprise, instead of offended of his teasing, the man grins wide with a breathy laugh. “I’ve done that before.” He pulls out a pen from his pockets and grabs a napkin off the counter and writes down a number, handing it to Santiago. Bradley notices there’s black stains on his fingers, but the lighting in the bar is too poor to make out what Eoin does with his hands. “Text me sometime. Lot to catch up on, you know?” He downs his drink and pats them both on the shoulders. “I’ll be seeing you boys later, you can count on it. Tell Hopper I’ll give him a proper goodbye later.” With a wink, he disappears out the doors.

*

**Contact Saved as Gwaine**

>> _This is Lancelot. Not passed out somewhere, are you?_

<< _Got ur nmbr savd. Im gd, u wnt 2 meet up?_

>> _That’d be great._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's pretty short and I'm sorry. ;=;  
> I didn't actually plan on having Gwaine remember. The bartender is Percival, of course~


	8. Chapter 8

“Welcome to my humble abode and make yourself at home,” Gwaine says as he lets Lancelot into his flat. Lancelot gives him a pat on the shoulder as he passes, looks around as to what makes Gwaine’s life this time. “Excuse the mess, I wasn’t exactly planning old company.”

It’s actually not that messy. Charcoal prints are set on shelves, and they’re actually really good at a first glance. There’s second-hand furniture (loveseat and two lounge chairs) with a couple coats hanging off the back of them. There’s also newspaper and magazines everywhere on the low table and — when Lancelot looks around toward the kitchen area — counters. Gwaine clears his throat awkwardly and makes space, starting in the living room.

“As soon as I remembered, I tried opening every newspaper to see if any of us hit the news,” he says quietly. “I didn’t know if everyone would be like me — born with a new identity, or just as it was in Albion. I’ve Googled everyone’s names, but… I bet you can imagine what came up in the searches. It was a real shock to come across you and Arthley”

Lancelot snorts. “Bradthur. Joking aside, far as I know, we’ve been given new names. I’m Santiago.” He sits on the sofa. “There’s also Guinevere, her name is Angel—”

“Of course it would be, nothing sweeter.”

“That’s my girlfriend, Gwaine.”

Gwaine stands up to look at him, arms full of newspapers. “You’re having me on. Nothing between her and Arthur?” Lancelot shakes his head, and Gwaine smiles at him. “Good on you, mate. I bet you remembered as soon as you saw her.”

“I didn’t,” he admits. “It was Merlin’s doing.”

“ _Merlin_ ’s back? Wait, wait,” he pauses, dumps the papers and mags in a corner on the floor, before turning on him and giving a searching look. “Is he really a sorcerer like them legends say? Because—”

Lancelot slowly raises his hands. “Now, Gwaine—”

“Because I always suspected. Get the look off your face, Lancelot, I’m not one for prosecuting every sorcerer around. It’s alright to me if Merlin’s a sorcerer.” He flashes him a grin and Lancelot sighs and smiles back. Where Gwaine grew up in Caerleon, magic and sorcery wasn’t a crime; he could have been around it. “So where is Merlin? You could have brought him with you.”

At that, he winces. “No, not really.” Gwaine gives him a puzzled expression. “He’s in the Camelot Institute, as a patient. Many of them are there, patients and staff. Elyan, Gaius, Uther, some others… and Morgana.” Gwaine stills and goes ghostly pale. “Are you alright?”

“I need a drink,” he finally mutters after a quiet moment. “Would you like anything to drink?”

“Quite the hospitality, Gwaine,” Lancelot says cautiously. “What happened?”

“A drink, first.”

*

Bradley scrutinizes his knights silently, arms crossed over his chest. More than half of them, the more than half still hungover, shift guiltily. Blowing air through his nose, Bradley turns and looks at Colin sitting on the bench, wiping shields sloppily.

“Merlin!” he barks.

The manservant winces and ducks his head.

“ _Mer_ lin,” he says, stern. “Come here. _Now_.”

Colin peeks at him and, quite daring, shakes his head.

“I won’t say it again,” Bradley warns.

“Best do as Prince Arthur says, Merlin,” Adetomiwa urges from the knight’s line. “Might be less trouble on us.” Bradley knows he’s teasing, can hear it in his tone, but it makes him angry. How dare they? They should know better, they’re Camelot’s best knights.

“I think Sir Elyan just elected himself to helping Merlin polish the armory after training.” Bradley announces tightly to everyone. Colin appears at his side, head still ducked submissively. “Is there anyone that would like to join him?” Silence, and they at least have the decency to look chastised.

He sighs heavily. “Look. I understand a night at the tavern. I really do, and I’m not going to keep you from it.” Before they start smiling hopefully at him, Bradley carries on louder, “But that does not mean _all_ of my best knights staying out until dawn! I’m surprised more than half of you are still standing! No, wait a moment, I spoke too soon; there’s Sir Kellian slumping over.”

“If it accounts for anything, Sire,” Santiago says, glancing at a man with longer curly hair. Bradley thinks he should know his name, but it escapes him at the moment the same way a dream can’t always process a face. “Sir Leon and I came back before mid-stroke.” The curly-haired knight elbows him.

“That’s not terrible, but the point is the sorry lot of you — my best knights — left the citadel! And… and.” He looks up and down the line, and faces Colin. “Merlin, where’s Gwaine?”

“Uhm,” Colin hesitates, “last I checked I was your keeper, not his?”

“Your influence to goad the knights into your tavern-hopping practices is getting you into enough trouble already,” Bradley says. “Don’t let your cheek help you to the stocks. Where’s Sir Gwaine?”

Colin stretches a hand behind his neck. “He, er. Might still be in his quarters? I dunno. Maybe. We were the last ones back, so…”

Bradley balks. “Last ones— What the bloody hell were you thinking! You knew this lot had training this morning! What time did you stumble back into the citadel?”

“We walked in at the seventh stroke, and I went and immediately got you breakfast? I’m not really sure, it’s all a blur at the moment.”

Bradley huffs out a breath and says a silent pray to the Gods for patience. “Sir Percival,” he calls out, and the bartender Hopper stands a little straighter. “Go retrieve the sleeping beauty. He’s had three hours of sleep. I think Gwaine should be kind enough to suffer among the rest of you.” There comes a few quiet groans and Bradley is disappointed he can’t pick them out. “What, you thought you all would be dismissed? Would you all be dismissed if an army marched in at this second? You would have wished you got your rest then, wouldn’t you? Stop moaning and pick up your damn swords. Pair off, most sober with the sorry sobs that woke up drunk. And you,” he says at Colin, who’s finally looking at him with more clarity than a sleepless servant needs to.

“Among your regular duties today, I would like you to sit and make a schedule with Leon of a small number of knights, and who, are able to leave the citadel for a night on circulation. I’d say no more than two or three knights at a time.” He watches with satisfaction as Colin nods, then goes on to say, “And if I catch you dozing off today, you’ll… you just better hope I don’t.”

“Yes, Sire,” Colin says, a little bow to his performance as he remains eye contact, and doesn’t that remind Bradley of their first meeting in the market square. It kind of makes him want to put Colin on his knees.

*

“Did you get any sleep?” is Katie’s first question when Bradley rounds into the nurses’ station with a thermos in one hand and leftovers in the other. He’s a few minutes early and the patients are still eating dinner.

Bradley sets his bag and belongings down and shrugs off his coat. “Some. Weird dreams kept waking me up, but I got enough. Staying up all night won’t bother me, either; there was enough of it during uni and there’s coffee to keep me up otherwise. How was your weekend?”

She blushes and looks down at her computer, but her eyes aren’t moving across the screen. “It was good,” she says, voice a little strained. “Yours?”

“Just good?” he asks, ignoring the question.

“I may have met someone?”

He smiles at her. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

Katie rolls her eyes. “Which is why I said my weekend was good.”

Bradley waits a few seconds for her to continue before saying, “Well? How was he? Or she? Or, er, they?” She stares at him, then laughs with surprise.

“You’re something else, James,” she says fondly. “I like you. I hope you stay around. It was a man. Very nice. Gentleman-like. Oh my god, the beard.” Bradley raises an eyebrow at her and she glances at him. “A lot of women like facial hair, so you know.”

“I’m not going to take your advice of what _women like._ ”

“You should, unless…” She _really_ looks at him. “Oh, okay.”

“’ _Oh, okay_ ’ nothing—”

“There’s nothing wrong with—”

“I know,” he says a little louder than necessary. She smiles and raises her own eyebrow at him as he clears his throat awkwardly. Quieter, Bradley says, “I, uh. I’m into both.”

“And that’s fine with me,” Katie says with a wider smile.

Bradley frowns at her. “Shouldn’t you get ready for report,” he says, making it a pointed statement rather than a question. She only laughs at him and gathers her papers.

*

Kilgharrah passes two letters to Merlin before going to report, and Merlin abandons the rest of his dinner and goes into the reading corner, turning on a desk light. It’d been a long time since he’s ever received letters, since the 1600s? Maybe?

_ Excuse my absence, Merlin. I didn’t want to come in while Arthur is there; he was suspicious the last time, and while I was able to make an excuse I doubt it would work again. I found Gwaine and Percival. Gwaine remembers since he met Percival in this time. Percival’s a bartender here in London, and Gwaine’s an artist. You may be able to find some of his works under Eoin Macken (his born name (Tom Hopper is Percival)). Percival doesn’t remember. _

_When I visited you the last time, I was meaning to tell you about what the Dragon said to me. He said everything is going to plan, and the only way to help you is leave things be. I haven’t a clue what he meant, but he also believes that because I went to Avalon, a place of preservation and healing he said, I remembered at the sight of you. This doesn’t explain Gwaine, however, or Arthur’s lack of memory. The Dragon did tell me that Arthur must remember soon or all shall be lost. He wasn’t much forthcoming about anything else, to be honest. Rather vague and spoke more metaphors than anything else. Is he like that with you? Perhaps you can persuade him to tell you more._

A grin on his face, Merlin highly doubts it, but he continues reading.

_ I may have a theory thanks to Gwaine, however. On my next visit I’ll bring Guinevere and Gwaine when Arthur works day shift to give me a reason to be there. I want her to meet Elyan, and maybe that will trigger something. Gwaine and I want to meet Elyan, for that matter. It’s been too long, a concept you’re more than familiar with. You said you never died. Did you mean you’ve been living since Camelot? How did you do it, Merlin? How could you have gone on after Camelot, after everyone? I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: you are a brave man, Merlin. You put the rest of us to shame with your acts of courage and kindness. Thank you for waiting. _

_Lancelot du Lac_

Merlin sighs heavily as he puts away the letter back into its envelope. He opens the next and immediately recognises Gwaine’s surprisingly-tidy cursive. A longing to see them both forces Merlin to wait just a moment, tears springing to his eyes.

Percival had followed the horse trails like Morgana did, but instead of empty handed like she was, Gwaine was draped over his horse. After he was able to calm himself at the loss of another friend, Merlin asked Percival if he wanted him to bury Gwaine at Avalon. Percival declined, took Gwaine in his arms, walked chest-deep in the waters, and let him go.

_ Merlin, my little sorcerer friend, you. You’ve been holding out on me, mate! _

_Wow, where do I even begin? I can’t wait to see you, first of all. Lancelot tells me next week? That seems too long a time, my friend. Let’s plan a rendezvous, or at least a drink. Can I sneak in booze? Can I sneak you out? As far as Lancelot tells me, there’s nothing wrong with you so you’ll have to give me the full details as to why you’re in a nutter’s house._

_I met Arthur with Lancelot, and Percival long before them. Percival and Arthur don’t remember anything, and for a while when it was just Percival I felt a bit like going mad. I had this detailed life of being Sir Gwaine (wow, what a honor, really, I got stories!) as soon as I set my eyes on him. Percival thought I was a bit odd, staring at him like I did, but I was kind of frozen on the spot you know? I was trying to organise two life memories right at that second, give a man a moment to buy his drink yeesh. I blurted out his name and he rolled his eyes at me, thought I were already tankered._

_When I saw Lancelot and Arthur out together, I thought there was no doubt, especially when I saw that Lancelot recognised Percival. Two of them together? Can’t be random chance. Well, it ended being sort of random. Somehow or another they know each other out of association with Gwen; I’m not sure how two people who live together have no idea of their lives before… It blows my mind, Merlin. I don’t understand this bit. Is it chance we’re finding each other, or luck, or because we’re all important somehow from before events, knowing each other? Are we magnets, am I talking crazy? Haha, I know I am._

Merlin rolls his eyes and smiles a bit wider, but Gwaine does make an interesting point. Thus far everyone has been in one location. What are the chances?

_I’m an artist nowadays. When I was younger and didn’t know any better, I’d draw things related to Camelot. I was rather obsessed with the Arthurian Legends back in the day, and I guess I know why. My folks were always trying to get me to try something different until I finally listened. My folks aren’t the same as before, but that’s alright. I don’t have a sister anymore; I’ve got two younger brothers one of which was named Kay, after Sir Kay. Who the hell is Sir Kay, anyway? The stories went a bit loose and screwy in my opinion. You didn’t have anything to do with that, do you? Because who the hell was the Green Knight? I’d have loved to actually earn my title in that one, feel all important there._

_Jokes aside, though. Lancelot tells me that you’re also around Morgana, and apparently it’s been for a while and she’s seemingly safe without her memories. I know you know what happened at the end. Percival got out fine, didn’t he? Just… be careful. Please. Get your magic back somehow and I won’t have to worry about you._

_Until next week,  
_ _Sir Gwaine of King Arthur’s Round Table_

_Nah, just messin’ again._

_Your friend,  
_ _Gwaine_

Pushing the page back into the envelope, Merlin wipes at his eyes and a shuddering sigh escapes him.

However slowly, his friends are returning one by one. There’s something to get ready for, Merlin realises, he just hopes everyone is ready when it happens.

*

It’s implacably dull on night shift. The CNA is doing her job, but there’s a lot of sitting around for the three of them. John brought a book, and the CNA alternates from playing Solitaire on the desktop computer and reading on her tablet between check rounds. There are a few scheduled night meds to pass out at 0130, 0200, and 0300, but after the charting and paperwork is finished there’s absolutely nothing to do.

“I’m going to go do vitals,” the CNA, Penny, says. Bradley nods and waves her off, kicking his feet in pure boredom.

“It’s not always like this,” John says distractedly, turning a page. “If Mr. Markus has a fit, or Miss Andrea’s blood sugar bottoms out, or—”

“Or if Dominik’s blood pressure goes sky high for no apparent reason,” says Colin, out of nowhere again. Bradley spins in his chair to stare disapprovingly at him. No one can be that graceful; the chairs squeak when they sit in them, but Colin goes around and makes no sound.

“Or if patients don’t take their medication like they’re supposed to,” John says in his own disapproving voice. “If you’re not going to take it, just refuse beforehand. Mr. James, if you would change that in the computer, please.”

“I bet you get off on telling Arthur what to do,” Colin remarks at John, a grin blooming on his face.

“Bradley,” he corrects automatically, leaning forward over a computer and logging into the hospital’s records.

“Better if I make demands of Uther,” John returns, sounding pleased.

“Anthony.” He strikes out the previous entry, states the reason for the strike-out, electronically signs his name, and places the correction that Colin refused his Ambien at 2300. He glances at the patient. “Did you throw out the Ambien?”

Colin nods. “I don’t save them to take with the next.”

“Coming off the streets doesn’t mean Merlin has a drug problem, thankfully,” John adds and turns another page.

“Colin.”

“Merlin,” they say at the same time.

Bradley spins in his chair until he faces the other nurse, narrowing his eyes at him. “Anthony—”

“Uther,” Colin adds unhelpfully.

“—said he didn’t want us to be playing along Morgan’s Camelot setting. You were there,” Bradley reminds him, speaking quieter in front of a patient about their orders and nurse-talk. “Why are you doing this?”

John is silent, seeming to actually be reading his book and ignoring him, until Colin demands, “Kilgharrah, tell us.” Bradley was about to reprimand Colin on his rudeness in his next breath, that he shouldn’t speak to the staff in such a manner, but John’s eyes flick on Colin before he gives a long suffering sigh. He sets down the book face-up on the desk and stares at the patient.

“Is ‘us’ an order?”

“It is,” Colin answers firmly, and Bradley looks between the two of them. What the hell?

The old nurse sighs again. “Very well. I had no intention on telling you, but if you insist…” He fixes Bradley with unreadable eyes. “Uther—”

“Anthony—”

“ _Whatever_. Our fearless leader is planning on dropping Merlin’s medication the week of the Council’s arrival to keep him out of their hair, so Uther, or Anthony, or _what have you_ won’t be embarrassed by a patient’s mental state.” He throws a meaningful look to Colin over Bradley’s shoulder while the younger nurse is dumbstruck with disbelief. “Why would I deprive Merlin conversation he enjoys when he’s about to be going through hell less than two weeks time? Tell me which one seems fair to you, Arthur Pendragon.”

Colin’s only daytime medication is Pexeva 30mg to treat his known depression. His initial therapist stated on recorded that Colin may go through anxiety attacks, but Bradley (nor any of the staff when he asked around to familiarise himself with the patients’ conditions) hasn’t witnessed these episodes. According to his chart, Colin had been taking the medication for about six years. It would only take three or four days to ruin the smooth-run.

“Why’s he… oh. Uther’s hoping I’ll isolate myself. He could have asked me to confine myself within my room,” Colin mutters bitterly. “I may have considered it.”

“Hey, no,” Bradley finally finds his tongue and focuses on Colin. “You have the right to come out here if you please. You’re a smart bloke, you know your patient’s rights. Anthony— what the bloody hell is he thinking, John? He will lose his license for that when the Council finds out.”

“Hoping to run Camelot so soon, Arthur?” John muses with a smirk that quickly disappears. “But it’s as Merlin says. It would be recorded that he refused his medication for the day. I can see Uther himself telling Merlin that they’ve regretfully run out of his Pexeva if the boy confronts the nurses he wasn’t given his medication, that it’d be a few days before the order comes in, please be patient with the facility.” He snorts.

Bradley reaches for the phone, but John quickly stands and rips it out of his hand. “What are you doing, young king?” he asks quietly, face unreadable.

“I’m calling the Council!”

“It’s taken care of.”

Bradley stares at him, lips thinning. “You’ve called them, then?”

“No, _but_ ,” he starts sharply when Bradley opens his mouth. “But I will take matters into my own hands when I believe Merlin isn’t able to deal with the withdraw.” He looks at Merlin meaningfully again, leaving Bradley feel out of the loop somehow. “I’ll stop giving him Ambien over that period so he won’t be too withdrawn in depression and sleep aids. If I determine he needs Pexeva, then I’ll start him immediately.”

“I don’t like it,” Bradley mutters, weighing the measures in his head. There’d be a one or two day period before the Pexeva kicks in.

“I don’t care if you don’t like it, but it’s going to happen,” John says with a note of finality, dropping the phone back on it’s base. “There will be a number of orders given by your superiors in nursing. Doctors, DONs, therapists, and others alike. It’ll, quite frankly, suck. Nurses follow the orders to the best of their ability until their humanity kicks in and they do what feels right, then lose their license for disobedience.”

It takes Bradley a moment before he realises John’s talking about himself. “This is a shite thing to lose your license on, Hurt. Just call the Council and it’ll sort itself out.”

“I will not. It’s no salt to me if I lose my license, I wouldn’t care, but I want everyone else to keep their jobs. Do you understand? I’m not important here. Besides,” he glances yet again to Colin, “I’m only following this inane order to help Merlin.”

Bradley side-glances to the quiet patient, who looks deep in thought. “Why? This is only damaging.”

“He knows what I’m talking about,” John answers vaguely. “If you followed all the stories of Merlin, you’d understand, as well. Now, if you excuse me, I have some medications to pass.” He goes to the med cart and opens a drawer, withdrawing a prepped cup.

“I can—”

“Sit there, Arthur,” he sighs. “It’ll take but a moment.”

Bradley stares at him until he rounds the corner and looks at Colin after. Colin is staring back at him.

“Are you okay with this?” Bradley asks and hovers his hand over the phone. “I will call them if you say no. I want to.”

Colin leans back in the chair and swivels side to side, turning his gaze to the ceiling. “It’s not right, and I don’t know if I’m prepared for it, but I know what Kilgharrah is hinting at.”

“Well at least one of us does,” he growls. His hands clench and he slams his fist on the desk. After a moment he releases his anger with a heavy breath and runs his hands over his face, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. Colin’s chair rolls closer and his hand lays softly on Bradley’s arm.

“It’ll be okay, Arthur.”

Bradley’s teeth grind together. “What about this is okay?” He can’t even correct Colin about using his name, it wouldn’t be right to take that from him too. He lowers his hands, blinking away spots to see Colin. There must be something truly unhappy on his face to make that expression on Colin’s. “What does John even mean? I don’t understand, Colin.”

“You know of the bit in the stories where I run into the woods with insanity? It happened,” he says sheepishly, eyes downcast. “I actually ran to Avalon and stayed there for more than three decades, yelling at the waters for you to return, but that’s neither here nor there anymore. Kilgharrah means me to fight depression the same way I talked myself into sanity again.”

“Christ, Morgan,” Bradley hisses, reeling away. “You’re either battling disorders or your not, there’s no on or off switch in someone’s brain to say _hey I think I’ll be perfectly okay today thanks_.”

“No there isn’t, and I didn’t claim there to be,” he replies a little hotly. His hand drops in his lap. “There wasn’t the medicine for mental illnesses then. If people lived long enough, they’d see that it either stays at the same rate or atrophy continues. I’ve seen and treated a great many of mental people until their deaths, and there, right at the end of their life, is a moment of clarity and realisation of their lives. Usually their last words is something along the lines of _I’m sorry for my burden_.”

He gapes. “You’re sick.”

Colin narrows his eyes at him. “Depression, mostly.”

“How did you do it, then? How did you discover the secret of mental illness recovery?”

The patient’s head tilts ever-so-slightly to the side. “Who said anything about recovery? I had to overcome it to know how to live again, to be a civilised human being, doesn’t mean I don’t understand that I’m still mad somewhere deep within.”

“So you’re admitting to the delusions.”

“I’m not delusional or psychotic.”

Bradley stares for a long moment. He points a finger at him. “If I think for one second you’re incapable of making decisions, I’ll feed you the Pexeva myself. And make the call.”

Colin suddenly smiles at him brightly. “Anything you wish, Sire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of the second half of this chapter I disagree with, like whoa. You notice anything amiss with your medications, you better call legal help, starting with the Board of Nursing/Council of Nurses. Unfortunately behind the scene decisions like this happen more often than not, especially with doctors. Nurses are often told to keep mum to cover up the damage and are threatened their jobs if disobeyed. This has been a PSA.
> 
> No, that's not researched material at the end: Mentally ill people most likely die mentally ill, too, sadly. I think I may heard it from somewhere but I don't remember. Truth or not, it was a semi-happy and angst-filled fictional thought. On a related note, if you or someone you know or love is struggling with a mental disorder, please call for help. Medication and/or therapy is what's best for them.
> 
> edit: The 'Mental Health Issues' tag has finally been added. I also belatedly added 'Insomnia' because whether you as the reader has picked up on it or not, Merlin has insomnia. In this 'verse, I more or less let him sleep when he wants to, which he doesn't. In this 'verse he doesn't need sleep or much consumable sustenance; if the character is immortal, I kind of figure they've been starved a couple times. Merlin eats as a necessity to appear normal and take his medication, but otherwise... not much. What's the point? He runs on magic. It could be considered an eating disorder otherwise, but I'm not listing it as such because it does not apply. His eating habits will be hinted at, but no one believes Merlin has an eating disorder.  
> Why Insomnia and not Eating Disorders: because Merlin takes medication for sleep. In my mind, Merlin views food as a pleasantry. He will eat for medication directions, not refuse food when offered to him, maybe take something sweet for a snack. He doesn't deprive himself of food, it's just not a necessity to him. He isn't anorexic nor bulimic. He does, however, very consciously and unconsciously deprive himself of sleep, and while sleep may not seem important to him still, it's more important than food. When Kilgharrah stated he needed a clear head, he meant sleep. Sleep is vitally important to everyone. Without sleep, someone is bound to make themselves crazy. And thus, Insomnia became a tag.


	9. Chapter 9

“Would you like more water, sir?” The waitress lifts the glass pitcher, prepared to pour at his wishes, but Rupert shakes his head.

“No, thank you.” The waitress leaves and he turns his attention back on the front doors, waiting and hoping his company will arrive. He hasn’t been sitting there long, and he more than understands busy work schedules, but he’s allowed to be nervous. Right? Free-spirited, brilliant, and astonishingly beautiful young women are as rare to find single as they are hard to pin down for relationships. Well, what Rupert hopes will be a relationship. He can do a friendship, too. He also hopes that the fancy atmosphere of the restaurant doesn’t scare her away. Rupert likes to go all in whenever he gets the chance but he realises that’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

There was something about the lovely Katie McGrath when he first met her four days ago in a coffee shop. He was on his lunch break, forgot his lunch at home and his normal coffee shop was closed for renovations. It was a little longer walk from the office, but he used his phone to search for highly reviewed cafes in the area and found a place called Lady of the Lake. As soon as he stepped in, eyes sweeping over the surprisingly full cafe, there she was. Sitting in a corner by herself, legs crossed, reading Vonnegut, dressed to the nines in an acceptably casual way, and ignoring the world with black coffee.

Of course he had to introduce himself right then and there. After ordering something close to his usual (decaf, milk) and apologising on interrupting her reading, Rupert successfully made it pass introductions, skipped the small talk, and dived straight into literature. Katie at least seemed pleasantly surprised and matched him for wit and clever banner, and then some. He was a loss for words most of the time when her intelligence in literature debates overran his own. He loved every minute of it and managed to arrange tonight’s dinner date. Rupert was also late for work thirty minutes, soooo… time well spent, in his opinion.

But, again, there was something about her. Something that felt familiar and dangerous, and if that didn’t give Rupert a thrill with her smarts and beauty he didn’t know what would.

A hand touches his shoulder gently from behind, and of course she’d take the back entrance in. He looks up at her as he stands from his chair.

“Excuse me if I made you wait long, Rupert. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t undressed for the occasion,” she says with a smile. Her hair is done up in a tight bun and she’s wearing dangles in her ears. Her dress is sleek and red and she wears a lace shawl for her shoulders. Her makeup is very light, and Rupert appreciates a natural look.

Taking just a second to stop looking at her, Rupert quickly stands and moves around the table to pull out her chair. “Not at all,” he says, a little breathless. “Your timing makes me early, and you are certainly the main attraction here.”

She laughs delightfully and sits.

*

“Gaius! Gaius, where’s— oh.” Bradley stops as soon as he enters the Court Physician’s chambers. Eoin and another knight are sitting on a bench in their chainmail while Richard is nursing the lower knight’s head, and Eoin and Richard glance at his entrance. “What’s happened?” A patrol came in not too long ago, one Eoin was leading, but Bradley heard he came straight here instead of reporting to him.

“Bandits on the East,” Eoin says roughly, watching Richard’s administrations on the knight. “They were taken care of. The rest is clear and accounted for. I would have come to the Hall immediately, but I wanted to make sure Sir Edward was going to be okay.”

“And okay he will be,” Richard assures them. Sir Edward gives a weak grin.

Footsteps come up the steps behind Bradley, and he makes room for Colin bustling through with a full satchel. Bradley nods and comes in closer to inspect what Richard’s doing.

“Did you find the flowers?” Richard asks Colin.

“Of course, and I got honey and hypericum,” he replies, carefully taking the herbs and a jar of coarse honey from the satchel.

Richard pauses in his work to look at Colin. “You’re very well on your way to becoming a great physician, Merlin,” he compliments. Colin smiles bashfully. “Don’t let it get to your head. Go and mix the ingredients into a salve. Time is wasting.”

“Sire,” Eoin gets his attention, and Bradley notices he looks hesitant. “The bandits were working for a slave trader, and…” The way he trails off makes Bradley realise the patrol wasn’t as clear cut as he first mentioned.

“Is it something that needs to be discussed privately?”

“We came across them at a druid camp. They were taking women and children,” slurs Sir Edward. Colin proves to be clumsy again as he knocks over the large mortar with a quiet gasp. “I— I’m not sure on your…stance with the druids—”

Eoin nods at his fellow knight’s words and intercepts, “We couldn’t let it go. Even if they weren’t simply bandits, I wouldn’t have stood for it. By your permission, I’d like to lead a platoon to rescue the druids in captivity.”

Bradley thinks it over for a moment. Women and children in human trade. Druids or not, his morals wouldn’t allow him to sleep peacefully if he told Eoin it wasn’t there business any longer and they did what they could.

“Who is this salve trader and where is he from?”

“The bandit called him Hagareth of Mercia,” Eoin says.

Richard raises his high eyebrow higher. “Surely King Bayard would know of human trades being done in his land; it’s not exactly a secret easily kept. Keep still,” he scolds the knight.

“It stings.”

Bradley crosses his arms and props his chin on a hand. Perhaps Bayard and the trader had a treaty, much like Cenred had done, but Bayard never struck him as the type to allow such business to go on in his kingdom. Another matter that bothered him is that the bandits were gathering within the Forest of Ascetir, well within the Kingdom of Camelot’s boarders. What would have possessed them to come so far south?

“I’ll write a correspondence to Bayard,” Bradley decides. “If he knows nothing of the trader, I’ll ask if he could take the matter into his own hands; marching and making judgment in another’s kingdom is treason. If he declines, I’ll then propose if it is a matter I could solve. The druids take refuge in Ascetir, after all. We offer protection and support to all those who lie within Camelot’s borders. There should be no reason why Bayard would want a vile trader in his lands, but if he opposes on all fronts…” He looks around the room and catches Colin’s eye, already thinking of a plan to take him for the journey North.

“If Bayard opposes, I’ll take a few men to Mercia to free the people in captivity. _All_ of them.”

Colin’s expression of approval is almost overwhelming, but it leaves Bradley knowing he was making the right course of actions.

*

It’s not often the little boy wakes Adetomiwa, but it’s a blessing so he’s not startled awake by a night shift CNA needing to take his vitals. The boy hovers over him and whispers a name he doesn’t recognise.

“ _Wake up. They’re coming again._ ”

He opens his eyes and looks up at the little boy dressed in rags and nods. Lately the boy has a constant peaceful smile, hair and clothes looking soft to touch and not dripping. Adetomiwa touched him once and he was so warm.

There’s the telltale rattle of the blood pressure machine and a shadow in the doorway. Wordlessly he lifts his arm to the worker. Tonight it’s Samuel. Samuel doesn’t make small talk to patients he doesn’t believe can understand. If Adetomiwa trusted himself to not include the boy no one else could see into the conversation, he’d tell Samuel a thing or two about knowing the patients. Until then, well, let fools believe what they wish.

After his vitals are taken, all normal, Adetomiwa tries to go back to sleep but the little boy is giggling around the room and becomes too distracting.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” the boy says, trying to contain his excitement, but Adetomiwa feels it in his core like it’s his own. _“I’ve taken a liking to see the King on shift. He’s already changed the atmosphere here, can’t you feel it, knight?_ ”

He sits up in his bed and rubs the dust from his eyes, sighing tiredly. He gives the boy an annoyed look and decides it’s time to wake up at — oh hell — 3:15. Coffee, with sugar and more sugar.

*

“After so many opportunities to be caught, why didn’t you leave as quickly as you could,” Bradley asks, leaning back in his chair to study Colin’s reactions. “Enemies began knowing your name, surely that made it harder for you to hide, and not to mention the times where you must have strayed in the back-line to cast your magic when I wasn’t conveniently knocked out.”

Colin shakes his head. “The enemies that knew who I was were other sorcerers, and to most of them I was Emrys. It was the name the druids started whispering, so no one knew me, not really. Enemies of the sword, well. That was more your forte and I was happy to let you have it.” He grins with a distant look on his face, remembering. “Even now I’m still shoddy with a blade. As for you, though? Probably half of the time you conveniently knocked out was my doing.” He turned sheepish and gave a shy laugh.

Without correcting Colin about names or fighting about his mental status, there wasn’t more to conversation between the two that Bradley was fond of. John had a point, however: there was nothing wrong with treating Colin to topics he enjoyed when his medications were going to be withheld. It bothered Bradley enough that he was willing to encourage delusions and false tales for the patient. If this was the only way he could make a patient happy, Bradley would listen (and try to find error in Colin’s stories).

John sat in his chair, half-listening to them as he read on in his book. Colin had gone on to say about two hours ago that he was a Dragonlord (whatever that was) and John, a dragon in the era named Kilgharrah, took his demands and gave advice when Colin asked. John didn’t correct him in any of it and kept on reading while occasionally checking the time.

“I didn’t leave because I didn’t want to,” Colin continued. “It was hard keeping magic to myself, but I had a destiny to fulfill. _We_ had a destiny to fulfill, and neither of us could do it alone.”

“To unite Albion into the greatest kingdom,” Bradley repeats from earlier, and Colin nods. There’s movement over the patient’s shoulder coming up the hall and Bradley sees Adetomiwa yawning. Colin looks behind him and smiles.

“Good morning, Elyan,” Colin says when the other patient comes close. Adetomiwa nods in his direction but makes way to the coffee machine that’s available for resident use. John watches him with a hum.

“I don’t hear Mr. Markus,” he comments idly as he goes back to his book. “Must have been the druid boy that woke him.”

It comes like a strike of lightning:

“ _I am truly sorry for what happened to you._ ”

For a split second, Bradley experiences a sensation not unlike vertigo. He sways in his seat, hands gripping the arms of the office chair to keep upright, and suddenly has the urge to vomit. He feels unnaturally cold and a fine sheen of sweat covers his body as he pants. Colin is at his side, putting a hand on his forehead, and John’s checking his pulse.

“ _I’ve already forgiven you, great king._ ”

“Leave him alone,” he hears Adetomiwa say when Bradley can focus.

Colin backs off when Bradley shakes his head and breathes in deep. “What…?”

John chuckles lightly and removes his hand. “I may have forgotten to tell you about our little ghost. Rather fond of Elyan, but he comes and goes as he pleases around here in Camelot. Most active during the night. Many of the staff and residents don’t notice.”

He wipes at his face. Ghosts? Bradley doesn’t believe in ghosts. There the same ridiculous notion as Colin’s delusions. But what just happened? What was that? He heard his own voice in his head, like a memory, then… then a voice of a child, right in his ear. He notices Adetomiwa watching him curiously from across the room, then he jumps from his chair.

“I’m going to get some coffee.”

“I’ll come with you,” Colin volunteers.

“You’re not allowed in the staff lounge,” he reminds, giving him a look.

“Let Merlin do as he wishes, Arthur. We’re the only authority staff around, who’s going to tell?” John says, keeping his considering gaze on Adetomiwa. “I’ll have a chat with Sir Elyan while you’re away.” Bradley sighs and beckons Colin to follow.

Colin falls in step beside him, but the walk down is quiet to not disturb the resting patients. Bradley slides his card through the lock and opens the lounge door for Colin to walk in first. When the door closes behind them, Bradley lets out a long breath and stares down Colin.

“What was that,” he demands to know. “Does Adetomiwa talk to…ghosts, or whatever? Why doesn’t he talk to anyone else?”

Colin doesn’t say anything for a moment, but when he does it’s the last thing he expects, “Elyan’s not sick.” Bradley barks out a disbelieving laugh and Colin glares at him. “I’m serious, Arthur. His medications work because he has the symptoms for schizophrenia, but before I came here, I walked everywhere around Britain, yeah? I saw Elyan just once before, and he lived on the land that was once cursed by druids. The spirit must have attached itself on Elyan, someone familiar and knew before. Must have been why he brought himself to Camelot; better a mental house than a priest.”

Bradley leans against the wall. “You’re saying his possessed. As ridiculous as that sounds, and it sounds pretty ridiculous mind you, how do you expect anyone to believe that?”

“You heard the druid’s voice,” Colin returns. “You tell me.”

A shiver runs down his spine. Trying not to think about it, he pushes off the wall and grabs a Styrofoam cup, then grabs another one and holds it out for Colin. He needs to get his mind off the whole matter. It was less than ten seconds, Bradley can believe it never happened. As if not knowing what to expect, Colin takes the cup slowly.

“Tell me about the rest of the knights,” he says instead and pours coffee for the both of them. A small smile appears on the patient’s lips and Bradley considers it a win, even if he’s not sure what he’s winning.

*

As soon as Merlin and Arthur are out of hearing distance, Kilgharrah stands gracefully from his chair and walks around the nurse’s station, closing in on the knight. The druid boy watches him curiously as he bounds back to Elyan’s side, leans in and whispers, “ _That’s a dragon. I’ve never seen one before him_.” Elyan doesn’t react to the druid’s words after so much practice of pretending not to notice him, but the knight’s gaze becomes a bit more guarded and unsure.

“The boy is right,” Kilgharrah concedes with a nod in the druid’s direction. He puts his hands behind his back as he talks, appearing disarming. “I am a dragon underneath this human skin. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a dragon again, but I still remember the wind beneath my wings and how warm fire felt in my gut.”

Elyan’s grip around the mug tightens and his eyes shift to the boy quickly. He’s not guarded, still unsure, but more hesitant.

“Yes I can see and hear the druid boy. I always could since you first arrived with him beside you.”

The knight’s mouth opens and his words are very carefully formed because he doesn’t speak often. “Then why didn’t you say anything?”

“There wasn’t any need to,” Kilgharrah responds easily.

“ _That’s rude_.”

The Dragon merely shrugs, and says, “I have my reasons.”

“Why now?” Elyan asks. “Can Colin see him?”

“I believe Merlin can sense the boy’s presence and hear whispers,” Kilgharrah says with a nod. “He’s always been able to sense spirits of the Other Realm, but see them? If he learns, Merlin is able to do anything, but there are things he doesn’t want expose himself to. I understand that much. Let’s have a seat, Sir Elyan, before you drop your coffee.” He leads them to the meal tables, and draws out a chair first for Elyan before taking a seat for himself on the opposite side.

Elyan sips his coffee and studies him for a long silent moment, then slowly takes the offered seat. “Why does Colin and the boy here call me that name? What does it mean?”

“You don’t know your Arthurian history well, do you? Elyan was a Knight of the Round Table, the son of Sir Bors. He’s not told much, but he has his stories,” Kilgharrah replies. He appreciates that Elyan picks up his cues to stay quiet with his dramatic pauses because he’s not done speaking. “Stories, that’s all they are, with maybe a smidgen of truth wrapped in there. Did you know, Sir Elyan, that only open-minded people can sense spirits? To see spirits, that’s another thing entirely. Tell me, how open-minded are you?”

“I don’t…” He glances at the druid boy who nods encouragingly at him. “My younger sister practices what she calls the Old Religion, with magic and polytheism. She says it’s what Paganism falls from.”

That is rather unexpected, pleasantly though. “Please go on,” Kilgharrah says.

“When we still lived together I loved listening to her, but I didn’t believe any of it myself. I don’t have any faith. Just… _magic_ you know? It’s out there, in fantasy and subtle changes. A great many people believe it’s real. That’s fascinating to me, so… so I like to keep an open mind about many of things.”

“ _It is real_ ,” the druid boy says. “ _My people practiced the Old Religion_.”

“Very interesting. It’s nice to know that the Old Religion still has followers,” the Dragon says. “What if I told you she was correct? That magic is real?”

“I believe it is,” Elyan says with a shrug. “You don’t have to prove that to me.”

“Ah, let me rephrase. What’s the term used…? _Harry Potter_ theatrics?” Kilgharrah looks around his company questioningly, but when they seem only confused he shrugs again. “Maybe there’s no words for it, but allow me to show you, young knight.”

With a flash of his eyes, he pushes their chairs from under the table and floats the table right before their eyes.

“ _Sorcery. You have magic_ ,” the druid boy gapes. The table drops quietly, and Kilgharrah releases a long breath. Using physical magic taxes him, especially since he hasn’t had long to practice with magic in this body.

“Of course I have magic, boy. Dragons are creatures of magic,” he says. He turns his attention on Elyan, who’s still staring at the table with an open mouth. “Now that I have your attention, Sir Elyan, I’m going to tell you a story that isn’t much of a story.” Elyan finally looks at him and swallows before he nods firmly.

*

They sit on the long sofa with their coffee, each taking opposite sides. Merlin shoots a look of concern at Arthur; he hasn’t said anything in a long while, and Merlin supposes they only have about twenty more minutes. That would equate enough time for his lunch, right? He knows the CNAs don’t _really_ take a lunch at night, but there’s a lot of sitting around usually.

“You gonna be alright, dollophead?” He’s probably thinking and re-thinking what he felt when the druid boy passed through him; Merlin felt it, and he wasn’t even touched, but he heard what the spirit whispered. The day in the abandoned druid camp came right back to him in an instant, and if Arthur was to remember right then, well… there were only a handful of memories better than that to show his worth.

Unfortunately Arthur didn’t seem to remember anything at all, but it sure as hell spooked him up. If the king wasn’t so adamant on coffee, Merlin would have suggested tea to settle his nerves. As it is now, Arthur snaps out of his thoughts with a jump and finally stops looking into his brew.

“ _Dollophead_? That again? You really must have had no respect for King Arthur,” he says with a shake of his head. His eyes are still distant, thinking, and Merlin frowns because Arthur didn’t answer his question.

“I respect you enough not to get thrown into the stocks,” Merlin says as he takes a drink with a slight grin. “You said you wanted to know about your knights? There’s Leon—” he notices Arthur’s gaze becomes more focused “— Gwaine, Lancelot, Elyan and Percival. Those were the original Knights of the Round Table. Leon wasn’t there to sit at the table, but he’s your First Knight. Which one would you like to hear about first?” Judging by his behavior with ‘Adetomiwa’ and the druid spirit, Merlin thinks Arthur’s going to stray as far from Elyan as he can for the time being.

Arthur takes a long drink from his coffee before answering. “Tell me about Sir Leon. He’s practically the only one I don’t know anything about.”

Merlin hums. “Leon, Leon… Where to begin? He was the longest serving to Camelot, fought gallantry and dedicated to training to become First Knight to your father before your reign. He grew up with Gwen—”

“Angel-Gwen?” he clarifies.

“That’s right. Her mother was maid to his household, so I assume his father was also a knight to Camelot. He never did say. They have tales of toad-catching, it’s a laugh to hear them.” Merlin smiles to himself as he thinks about Gwen and Leon laughing as they’d tried to tell Merlin their childhood adventures. “He was always very loyal to the throne— or I should say, to you and your father. When Morgana tried to take the throne a couple times, Leon would have nothing to do with her. Denied every trick she pulled. Very noble and trustworthy, and kind to the maids and servants within the citadel. He even fought a dragon with you.”

“Now you’re pulling my leg. A dragon? Really? They never existed.”

“Excuse you! Who’s the one here that’s lived over a thousand years?” Merlin makes a face at him. “Kilgharrah, actually—”

“John, the nurse you call Kilgharrah?” Arthur asks with a cocked eyebrow.

“Right, but I sent him away and told you that you dealt him a fatal blow. But we’re talking about Leon. He was possibly the first knight to make allies with the druids because they saved his life.” Arthur flinches at ‘druids’. It isn’t the time to mention them, but it’s important to Merlin to say.

“And how did they do that?”

“The Cup of Life,” Merlin answers, then tries to find the proper words used nowadays. “Er, the Holy Grail.”

“Really, now?” Arthur’s face becomes disbelieving, and Merlin kicks out his foot.

“Yes, really. Now hush and listen. You’re asking and I’m the one telling. Now, Leon. Leon did almost every quest and battle with you. He was strong and vigilant where you were…yes, strong, but he made up for anything lacking, and you were sometimes careless, especially when there were victims involved.”

“King Arthur shouldn’t be careless,” Arthur complains and kicks back. “You’re making him sound like a muck.”

“You were always a muck, shut it. It’s a good quality, being concerned for your people and others. Leave the commentary after I’m done, would you?” Merlin laughs, but it dies short as he recalls more about the knight. “After you—” he chokes a little and covers it by drinking more coffee, “After you… passed away, Gwen waited a couple years before her new council of advisers told her she needed an heir to the throne. She told them she wouldn’t have a child out of either wedlock or handfast, so she asked my advice about marrying Leon, who was forever faithful to the Pendragon name. I remember telling her that it was up to Leon, yeah? I don’t what she said to him, but they ended up wedded by the end of the year, and child came forth from their marriage.”

“Well that’s good, right?” Arthur asks.

Merlin gives a light smile. “It was good. Gwen and Leon were great rulers, and their son withheld the legacy.”

“However false it is, you’re a good storyteller.” Arthur says, and Merlin kicks him again. Arthur catches his foot in his hand, and he’d deny every shiver that went down his spine. His king gives him another disbelieving look before letting him go. “I still have about ten minutes. Tell me about Percival.”

“Oh, Percival! He became the new First Knight…"

*

Rupert wakes to the sound of a mobile alarm that’s not his own. He rolls over and curls around Katie, kissing her shoulder. “Your alarm is going off.”

“I’m trying to ignore it,” she mumbles sleepily.

“Put it on snooze?” he suggests. Every second of it going off is waking him up further, and it’s _his_ weekend. Sadly, they don’t share the same weekends except for every other Wednesday when it’s her three day week at work. She may work three and four twelves, but he’s stuck on the sad schedule of five eights. Yet, Rupert doesn’t believe he could behave in a humanely fashion if he had to face his board members for more time than he was already. “You can have another ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes that feel like ten seconds if I fall back asleep.” Katie groans and stretches under his arms before propping herself on her elbow to turn it off.

Rupert does the same. “May I make you breakfast? Coffee at least?”

She looks over her shoulder at him, a smile playing at her features. “You’re very sweet, and very proper with your _may I_ ’s. I’ll take you up on that offer of breakfast if you have lunch with me around two today.”

“I am helpless to your wishes,” he replies, rolling over and starfishing the bed. Too early for a weekend, but he’d suffer in silence if it meant servicing this extraordinary woman. He grins when she leans backwards to give him a kiss.

“I like my toast barely brown.”

“Who says I have bread?”

Katie giggles. “I may have woken up in the night to get some water.”

Rupert feigns a scandalized gasp. “You found my stash.” He’s rewarded with another kiss for his morning-lazy comedy.

“All the stashes, including the mags beneath the bed.” Katie throws back the covers. “Hurry, or you’ll miss a shower.”

Did he mention she was bold? Because she was very bold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA TIME.  
> When Merlin says "his [Elyan's] medications work because he has the symptoms for schizophrenia", I am completely winging it for the sake of fanfiction, huzzah. NEVER take medications unless for a diagnosis. They can/will make you sick otherwise!
> 
> This chapter is dedicated to one of my favorite episodes: A Herald of the New Age. Like, whoa. I think that was the episode that Arthur trumped my favorite character card over Merlin.
> 
> Finally the Leon/Morgana ship takes off. It's very important that it does at this point. It probably should have happened sooner, I dunno, we'll have to see! I wasn't actually too fond of the ship (had been more of a Leon/Mithian with Morgana being her own strong lady, yay) until I read Loaded March. Have you read Loaded March? If not, you should probably get in that PRONTO.
> 
> Second, half of this chapter was written while I was on the verge of drunk! I think I should probably be drunk when I write from now on. Also! Tomorrow I'm heading to work again, there will be a delay in writing and posting until my weekend (very likely next Tuesday). Speaking of the hospital setting, fun fact: Merlin walks around barefoot. It's totally discouraged for residents to go around barefoot (infection control and because mobile people could slip on tile), but Merlin cares not. He has shoes and uses them sometimes, but otherwise he's all barefoot.


	10. Chapter 10

Angel pauses when she comes in from her shift, cocking her head at the billboard next to the door, above their key hooks. There’s little notes and reminders and half-made grocery lists tacked on, but she’s focused on the calender. On the 25th, next week, there’s a giant red X, while the 28th-30th have _COUNCIL_ written through them in Bradley’s script. Angel makes a curious sound because she’s the one that usually writes dates on the calender, often forgetful of appointments in her per diem work. In her handful of years in knowing Bradley and living with him for two, she’s probably caught two marked dates on the calender from Bradley.

Angel’s birthday during their first year of knowing each other, and his father’s funeral three years ago.

She hangs keys on the hook and her coat in the closet, humming to herself thoughtfully. Whatever at work on his mind, she’s aware that Bradley doesn’t want to forget about it.

*

As promised, Guinevere came along for their next outing adventure. She, Arthur, and Lancelot went for dinner as soon as Arthur’s woke up and his weekend started. Guinevere had gone through his closet and picked out casual clothes while Lancelot pushed him toward the shower, Arthur sputtering as he went. Dinner was filled with jokes and trips down memory lane between his girlfriend and king, but Lancelot was perfectly fine in throwing back his head as he listened.

His phone beeps with a message, and throwing an apologetic smile, Lancelot checks it.

<< _art show n 30 if u wnt 2 hang?_

>> _Out with Arthur and Gwen_

<< _u cn brng thm 2 obv_

<< _id lyk 2 c thm again_

Lancelot understands Gwaine’s want to see the others, even if they would only meet and know him as Eoin. As knights and when not hitting the tavern, Gwaine would do room checks before they went to sleep to make sure everyone was accounted for. Lancelot’s heart aches for him, thinking it may be tougher on Gwaine than he was letting on. He takes a drink of his water, listening to Arthur and Guinevere’s playful chatter as he texts back again.

>> _Address?_

An address is sent back and Lancelot immediately recognises that to be a gallery in just off the center of London, not too far from them now; they drove by it to come to their hole-in-the-wall diner. It’s a matter of convincing his company to come. Guinevere likes art well enough and wouldn’t mind tagging along, but he doubts Arthur’s taste have changed in this new identity.

“What’s up?” Guinevere asks, gesturing to his phone with her fork.

Go for broke, he thinks and says, “Remember when I told you about my friend last week?”

“The one from the bar, Eoin,” she clarifies without a hint of question, and Lancelot smiles at her.

“Does he need money again?” Arthur asks with a raised eyebrow.

Lancelot snorts. “Nothing like that. He actually wanted to invite us to an art show, after we’re done here. Unless,” he trails, looking between them, “we have other plans?”

Guinevere also looks between them, shrugging. “Not that I knew of. If it’s no problem to Bradley, I’d love to meet your friend, but are we dressed for the occasion?”

“I’m sure we are,” he says, glancing at Arthur. “What about you?”

Arthur takes a long moment before replying, swirling a chip in ketchup as he thinks it over. Lancelot wishes he could read his mind, but finally Arthur nods. “I don’t see why not. It’s not going to be a nude show or anything, right?”

“Bradley,” Gwen says exasperated and fond.

Lancelot grins. “Tasteful, at least,” he answers, and Arthur makes a show of rolling his eyes though he gives a small smile.

*

It’s apparently a huge event, and they’re undressed by far, and Bradley scowls inwardly as he looks around the room of people. Buyers and critiques and media have all gathered for the show. Men are in waistcoats or full tuxedos and the women are dressed in expensive gowns, yet no one looks at the three of them as if they’re out of place. Bradley counts it as a small blessing as he looks at the others. Angel’s interest is gather quickly to the art, but she stays close to them while Santiago texts on his phone.

“Well, where is he?” It’s not really his fault if he sounds put off, he just doesn’t like to be taken by surprise.

“Making an excuse to get away from the crowd, he’ll be here to meet us soon.”

Bradley narrows his eyes at him. “Wait a second, you didn’t say he was _showing_ here.”

Santiago makes a face and shrugs, humor lacing his tone as he says, “I thought it were obvious.”

Not really, Bradley thinks, but he wouldn’t mind seeing what the average drunk would call art, or what talent the gallery would rate. He gestures and indicates that he’s going to walk around as well, and Santiago nods and makes his own gesture with his phone. He’ll text him if Eoin shows up before Bradley returns.

There’s photography of people and landscapes blown up in decorative frames, but Bradley has no idea to tell if they’re any good. The colors are bright, so they’re all right? Photographers are gathered around with their own cameras, talking about light leaking, and Bradley quickly moves on to the next section which is some kind of 3D modern art. There are statues and fence posts nailed together and a bright pink bathtub with painted kitten plushies on the sides. He pauses at the bathtub, trying to see it through an artistic point-of-view, but it doesn’t make sense to him.

“Why I never imagined to see you here, James,” comes Katie’s voice, and for a split second Bradley wonders if he could dive down the bathtub’s drain and disappear because he never wanted to meet someone from work, here of all places. He turns with witty comment on his tongue but it dies when he sees her.

Katie is dressed as expensively as any other woman in the gallery, and with only the images of her in scrubs Bradley wouldn’t have recognised her at a first glance. Belatedly he realises she’s hanging off the arm of a well-dressed and bearded man with curly hair. He looks awfully familiar in the worst ways possible, because Bradley can easily picture him done up in chainmail.

“Likewise,” is all he can seem to say.

Katie smiles at him knowingly and looks at her date. “Rupert, this is Bradley. He’s another nurse from the hospital where I work. Bradley, Rupert.”

Rupert sticks out his hand and says with an easy smile, “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he says again and shakes his hand. Bradley does, however, tack on, “She’s rather wicked, I’d be careful.” Rupert’s smile widens.

“What are you doing here, Bradley?” Katie asks with a teasing eye roll.

Bradley shrugs and glances back at the tub. “Viewing, I think, or maybe fancying myself for a bath. I admit art’s never been my forte. Like this piece,” he says, “what’s it’s point? How does it make you feel?” It comes off sarcastic. Katie raises to his challenge unexpectedly, and lets go of her date’s arm and comes closer to inspect the ridiculous modern art piece, and is silent for a few minutes.

“Sad, and it’s a rather morbid piece,” she says surprisingly with a solemn tone. Bradley raises his eyebrows and Katie notices his expression because she goes on to say, “First of all, the pictures of cats on a bathtub is rather ironic because it’s widely popular cats don’t like water. Second, considering the cats are stuffed and the outside is painted pink, you’d imagine it could probably be placed in a girl’s bathroom, yes? But the tub is too deep to be safe for any child to bathe in without supervision. Look inside. There’s a water ring that’d reach my shoulders at the top.”

It makes Bradley’s insides cold at the insinuation. “Would the submitter seriously—”

“Don’t look so frightened, James,” Katie says with a kind smile. Rupert’s arm wraps around her shoulders and she leans into his embrace. “It’s only art. It was propped to look like that to arouse intense feelings. How does it make you feel,” she parrots with teasing mock. Katie leans her head back to whisper something in Rupert’s ear and he nods.

“Would you like to walk with us? Maybe we could teach you the finer points of art,” she says, grinning.

“I’m actually—”

“He’s actually my guest of the evening,” Eoin interrupts, and they all turn to look at him, Santiago and Angel trailing close behind. Eoin smiles politely, slightly strained, at the both of them, offers his hand out. “Eoin Macken,” he introduces himself.

Katie’s eyes widen. “Oh my God,” she gasps and firmly clasps both her hands around his. “I know you!” Probably from a bar, Bradley thinks.

Eoin stiffens, face going grim. “Do you, now?”

“Your pieces are extraordinary, Mr. Macken!” she gushes, “I’m sorry if I’m being too forward, but are you willing to sell to private owners? I especially love your _Il était une fois en France_ series.” There’s a quiet few seconds before Eoin barks out a laugh that sounds oddly relieved. Out of the corner of his eye, Bradley notices Santiago relax as well. Bradley, however, raises an eyebrow at Katie’s behavior.

“One of my least popular pieces, Missus…” he flickers his eyes to her hands, and corrects himself, “ _Miss_ , I do apologise that you’re not married. An eye for beauty is one to keep.” He winks at Rupert and Bradley’s eyebrows go higher. This is not the drunken man from the pub; he’s suave and knows how to appear at least cleaned up. His tuxedo is the same as everyone else’s.

“Oh, excuse me, I’m Katie. Katie McGrath,” and Bradley can’t help but try to not laugh directly outright because she’s blushing all shy-like, now. He manages a snort. Rupert, at least, seems to find it as amusing as he does, which Bradley is appreciating. He thinks he sees the sort of man Rupert will be, as gentle and caring as Santiago.

Eoin raises her hands and kisses the back of them. “Beautiful name, Miss McGrath. What are the chances that two beautiful Irish persons stand in the same room?”

Santiago sighs. “Eoin. She was asking about your art.”

He releases her hands and splays his own. “My friend is absolutely right. By any chance do you know my lovely companion?” he asks curiously, eyes narrowing as if searching for her answer. “Or his even more lovely, soon-to-be fiancee?” Santiago elbows him while Angel laughs, and Bradley doesn’t have it in himself to feel a jealous sting. One day, soon he believes, they will get married.

Katie eyes them both and smiles. “We’ve met in passing. They’re friends of Bradley, and I only work with him.”

“I see…” Eoin says, and seems to nod decisively as he turns to Rupert with an arm out before him. “Sir, I’m sorry I didn’t ask your name? I assume Miss McGrath is here with you?”

Rupert smiles and shakes his hand strongly. “A pleasure to meet one of Katie’s stars. I’m Rupert Young, and you’re incorrect in assuming she’s with me. I follow where she leads,” he says with a laugh.

“You don’t happen to be Rupert Young of Young’s Industries?” Angel asks.

“That’s right…”

“Let me introduce my friends,” Eoin intercepts. “This is Angel and her boyfriend Santiago. By now you should know the horror that is Bradley.” Bradley can’t help but think that Santiago’s name sounds a bit…off, slowly pronounced, but he pushes it aside when everyone finally exchanges handshakes.

“It’s still my father’s company, but whenever he decides to retire it’ll be transferred to my name,” he explains to Angel mildly.

“What’s Young’s Industries?” Santiago asks, which Bradley is happy someone did.

“A children’s commercial company,” Angel says. “They sell anything from baby and toddler clothing and toys, to food and bath products. While not as big as the others out there, they’re organic and huge in charity work. The grocery I work at helps with the donations.”

Rupert looks pleasantly surprised. “What’s your grocery?”

Angel flushes under the attention. “Oh, it’s just an organic market, not even corporate owned.” When he still seems interested, she stutters, “S-Sun’s Growth, on the corner of Borough?”

“I’ll let my father know,” he promises with a smile. Bradley suppresses the urge to rolls his eyes; easier said than done.

Eoin claps his hands together. “I’ve got a nice group already, but I’m hoping to gather Miss McGrath and Mr. Young.” He looks at Santiago while Katie looks like she can hardly contain her excitement. “Will that be alright?”

“Certainly.”

*

<< _morgana n leon wow_

>> _I’m trying to get my head around it as well._

<< _they dont evn knw_

<< _we cn tll merlin n c wat he says_

*

From the corner of his eye, he sees Katie. She’s on the damn field again. Bradley growls under his breath and barely dodges the training knight’s dull blade. “Hold!” he calls to his partner, and the knight backs up immediately while Bradley stomps to Katie, standing on the edge of the practice grounds in her dark blue dress, frowning at them all.

“What have I told you about coming here, Morgana! This isn’t a place for you,” he says as he gets closer. “Shouldn’t you be with Madame Brywen for your lessons?”

She glares at him. “Sod the old hag and her embroidery,” she mutters. “I want to learn to use a sword, as well!”

“Morgana,” he tries using his _I’m the Prince_ -voice, but Katie’s still older than him and she never let’s Bradley forget it. “Father will get upset to see you here; your dress is already getting dirty.”

“And? Just because I’m a girl means I shouldn’t know how to defend myself?” She’s getting angrier by the second.

Bradley’s mouth opens and closes. “Well, I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Yes you did,” Katie huffs. “You think boys should do all the fighting, and us girls should swoon at your stupid dancing.”

“We’re not dancing!” he argues.

“You’re using the two-four and five step Madame Brywen taught us! Watch!” She’s quick to take the practice blade from his hand, moving like a snake, and Bradley gives an unheard shout. Katie holds the sword with two hands and positions her feet apart in the starting for the famous ballroom dance, but instead of moving as slow as dancing she’s quick again as she waves. Okay, so maybe she had a point, but he doesn’t wave the sword that wildly. “If everyone sees the way you move, your movements are predicted and then you’d be struck down. Has anyone told you to change your pattern?”

Bradley sneers as his face heats up. “Has anyone told you you’re meddlesome?”

She raises the sword. “Say something.”

“You’re stupid!”

Katie stays true to her threat and bounces the blade all over his sides and pokes him hard in the chest, shouting, “DON’T CALL ME STUPID! You think all girls are stupid, but you’re the one being beaten by a girl right now, Arthur!”

“Because you have the bloody sword, ow _stop it_ Morgana!”

“Lady Morgana!” It’s Rupert, his father’s rising knight. He’d definitely tell her off, Bradley thinks. He jogs to them and catches the blade before Katie can do anymore damage. “You’d be punished from King Uther if you continue this,” he says, voice reasonably soft.

“Thank you, Sir Leon, you’re absolutely right,” Bradley agrees.

Unexpectedly, Katie falls to her knees and starts crying. She doesn’t make a sound when she cries, Bradley found out when she first came to live at the castle three years ago, and he can count the numbers of times he caught her crying on two fingers, in public at least. He feels extremely awkward about it and looks at Rupert for help. The knight doesn’t look at him, though, and bends on one knee before her.

“Lady Morgana?” he asks, “What’s wrong?”

Katie sniffles and rubs at her face. “The king hates me,” she whispers. “He won’t hardly look at me. I just want to make him proud, to prove myself to him.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t hate you. King Uther is always so busy, but he’s always going to be proud of you, Lady Morgana. You don’t need to prove anything to him. Is that why you want to learn how to fight?” Rupert asks.

“Part of it,” she mumbles, picking at the grass and not meeting their eyes. Rupert looks between her and Bradley and back again.

“I can teach you,” he says, then to Bradley as Katie’s head swings up to stare at him with wide eyes, “It wouldn’t be a problem for me to do, Sire. She should learn some protection as a Household Noble; there’s lots of funny business sometimes, and it wouldn’t get in the way of my training or her lessons.”

Bradley fidgets. It’s not often someone asks him his opinion and permission for anything, and he doesn’t want to say the wrong thing. “What if Father finds out? Girls aren’t supposed to fight, he doesn’t like them to.”

“I’ll say I did it,” Rupert says quickly, so earnest and sure. “I’ll teach her in secret, and if I get caught I’ll leave your name out of it.”

“No, don’t do that!” Bradley nearly squeaks. “I won’t let you get in trouble for something I said you could do!”

“I can learn, then!” Katie lunges forward and grabs the chainmail tunic, looking up at him with desperate eyes. “You just said you’ll allow him! Don’t take back your words, that’d make you a shit king later!”

“Morgana!” he scolds, but then sighs, heavily put upon. “Yes, go ahead and let Sir Leon teach you, _but_ ,” he adds on quickly when it looks like she’s about to get too excited, “only when he wants to. Is that alright, Sir Leon?” Rupert nods and looks back at Katie as he stands, then helps her to stand as well. Katie takes his hand, face blushing slightly and even though they’re still kids, Bradley snorts out loud; he’s seen that look all the time during banquets. She glares at him.

“Thank you, Sir Leon. When can we start?” she asks. “Today? Or, oh! It’ll have to be at night!”

Rupert laughs. “How about right after dinner behind the stables? You’d have to change first. You can’t fight in a dress.”

“You’d _die_ ,” Bradley says in a loud stage-whisper. Rupert shoots him a disapproving look, but it’s Katie who kicks him in the shin and slams the pummel in Bradley’s gut. He bends over half way with a groan.

“I’ll see what I can find,” she smiles disarmingly at the knight before wiping her face clear and walking away.

*

Morgana simply flushes with delight when he, Gwen, and Lancelot walk in the hospital on Thursday with homemade lunch. Gwaine had never met a kind Morgana, so the attention is rather terrifying and…offsetting. He keeps thinking she’ll turn a wicked smile on him and start making him scream. It was hard enough to introduce himself to her at the gallery, but her lack of memory and fangirling made it easier to fall back on to something Gwaine was used to, regardless if the evil witch killed him. It was years ago, and the damn sorceress doesn’t even have her magic now. She did, however (or with Leon’s help), purchase his full _Il était une fois en France_ collection of charcoal originals at a near 23,000 Euros each.

“Is the princess around?” Gwaine leans over the counter while Lancelot sweeps the room for Merlin or Elyan. “We were hoping to catch him before he left for lunch. We made extras,” he says with a smile. Gwen, bless her, holds up her plastic bags that hold more than extras for Arthur, but for Morgana as well.

“He’s gone already, if you mean Bradley,” she answers with her own smile. “But you all are more than welcome to stay and keep me company.”

“That means I can eat his share!” Gwaine says. “We have some for you, as well, but only if you sing for it.” Okay, sue him, he isn’t always going to play nice.

Morgana’s eyes turn sharp. “I’m not sure what you’re hinting at, Mr. Macken,” she says dangerously sweet, and Gwaine sees that she’s just as quickly assessing now as she was in Camelot and very probably thought he propositioned her. Lancelot gives him a nudge and points out the window where Gwaine catches sight of Merlin and Elyan both in the garden over his shoulder before they walk out of view. He almost loses his breath.

“I mean nothing by it, Katie,” he grins disarmingly. “Forgive me. Since we’ve missed Bradley, are visitors allowed to linger?”

“They are if they’re not here to mingle only with staff,” he hears Gaius’ voice answer, and he looks down the counter to the end of the nurse’s station where the old physician sits at a computer. Gaius meets his eye and Gwaine is overcome with fondness at the sight of him.

“Of course not, my friend! We’ll gladly go converse with the patients!”

“If you want to stay behind,” he hears Lancelot whisper to Gwen, concerned, “you can keep Katie company. Bradley should be back soon.” It sounds like it’s to ease her as much as both of the knights. Gwaine sees her smile thankfully.

“Let me see what you cooked, Angel,” Morgana says, pulling up the empty office chair beside her. “I’m starved! Would you like some of mine, Richard?”

“These boys helped me,” she says modestly.

Gaius rolls closer. “It smells wonderful.”

Satisfied to leave them be under Gaius’ watch, Gwaine beckons the other knight to follow him out the door. It’s a patio with a wraparound garden, and they can see the tops of Merlin and Elyan’s heads as they walk. Lancelot guides them to the exit of the garden, Gwaine feeling the evermore giddy with every step closer to his friends. When they finally reach the bend, Merlin and Elyan are already there, walking slowly towards them now, talking softly with their heads close together and not noticing them yet, but Gwaine stops and stares, his heart pounding and legs feeling weak.

“Oh Merlin,” he breathes.

Merlin jerks and his head whips up to stare at him with wide eyes. “Gwaine,” Merlin says, equally quiet before he smiles with all teeth and dashes forward. “ _Gwaine_!” They collide and embrace each other tightly, laughter and tears coming from the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more of an intermission chapter. :]
> 
> Time skips are unexplained, I'm sorry, I just noticed that it may seem a little weird. That was during their four-day weekend, and now they're back at work. The next chapter will skip almost an entire three day work week (after our boys have a chat while Arthur's away) before I DO WHAT'S BEEN PROMISED. SORRY MERLIN. YOU AREN'T GONNA FEEL GOOD. APPARENTLY THE READERS ENJOY IT, I DON'T KNOW WHY.


	11. Chapter 11

A near decade after… _after_ , a group of sorcerers had come to Camelot to test the budding new laws of magic. They had called themselves a coven, a word that would carry on into modern day usage to describe a large number of magical workers. The coven did more than test the boundaries and fine grey lines of what was acceptable; they gave the Queen of Camelot a _choice_. Either watch Camelot slowly die, or Consort Leon was to challenge them in a duel. Him and his best knights against the five of them.

“That’s preposterous,” Queen Guinevere had hissed, clenching tight on her future husband’s arm to keep him from standing. Nearing middle-aged, the weight of the crown never did hold her down. “You’ve declared yourselves as terrorists. We’ve given enough leniency to your destructiveness, it’s about time you’ve left Camelot and never look back, or face the consequences.” Merlin had gone behind them without preamble and cleaned up any damages, calmed any frightened citizens, and spoke with the coven to tone down their theatrics. He reminded them that they were here as temporary guests and assured them that any laws they thought may not have been there definitely was. Merlin was sure to cover every aspect when becoming Court Sorcerer and speaking months with Gwen, the knights, and the new Council of Advisers.

He’d discovered the group of sorcerers weren’t aware of who he was. They were too young, and they traveled from the far west, beyond the Five Kingdoms. None one but the Druids spoke the name of Emrys with respect, and Merlin had never advertised himself as such. Sorcerers then believed him to be a legend, appearing to fight by the side of the late King of Camelot in the Battle of Camlann but believed to have perished along with him. It was rather accurate, in Merlin’s opinion.

The leader of the group, a twenties-something magician named Fryner, stepped forward, arm raising to the side as if to give another demonstration of their acts. “I could make it easier for you to let him be challenged, if that pleases you?” he’d asked, but Merlin quickly leapt to his feet from the right of the Queen.

“Your Majesty, if I may?” Merlin spoke up.

“What would you say?” the young man said with a sneer.

After a long moment, Guinevere finally glanced his way, “For those attending Court for the first time, this is Merlin of Ealdor, Camelot’s Court Sorcerer.”

Fryner had stumbled slightly, eyes widening. “That’s your Court Sorcerer?” The other members of the coven whispered loudly amongst themselves. “He looks like a servant, acts like one!”

Gwen stood up, hands clenched at her sides. “I believe I gave Merlin the floor to speak,” she said loudly. Fryner bowed, mumbling apologies that were ignored.

“Now, neither is much of an option,” Merlin had said with a clap of his hands. “If Her Majesty permits it, I’ll give you and your followers two choices. The first is that you leave. Leave Albion and never return. Go home to the west and tell them the stories are true, that Camelot and the Five Kingdoms have magic flowing through its’ lands again.” He dropped his hands, and his tone became dreary. “The second choice is that you stay and challenge me instead.”

“But—” Fryner had shifted his eyes between the tight-lipped royals, back to the Court Sorcerer.

“But nothing,” he had intercepted smoothly. “You know as well as I, that no matter how many an army, a single sorcerer has the advantage if he has the knowledge. There’s five of you! It was not fair of you to do challenge the future King as such, and I personally find it a disgrace that you would treat magistrates in such a manner. Have you no honor? Have you done the same to the other kingdoms you’ve traveled across to approach Camelot?”

“Merlin,” Guinevere had addressed him in an undertone, turning sideways that the sorcerers were still in her sight. “There’s one of you. You told me you never fought more than one at a time, not even with Morgause and Morgana.”

Merlin smiled brightly at her. “That is true.”

“ _Merlin_!”

“As much as I enjoy like the odds of that,” Fryner had said loudly to get their attention, which rude, “I don’t believe you’re the great Kingdom of Camelot’s Court Sorcerer because you just know a lot about magic. Despite your appearance, you probably are very skilled. You’re probably the greatest magician in all of Albion, even. Am I correct?”

The most powerful sorcerer of all time had stood there and shrugged, eyes widely innocent.

Fryner smirked. “You approached us seeming an idiot, but I believe it would be unwise to have my coven face against you, Merlin of Camelot. You must love your home here very much, must be practically the most powerful emotion you have to guard.” It was a prompt in which Merlin had inclined his head silently in agreement. “We take your generous offer in letting us go and never return, only if you come to the west with us. Or else we destroy Camelot.”

There had been a long moment of silence, until the members of the court looked around each other, whispering. Merlin could hear them, thinking he would leave to protect Camelot, then others not so sure.

“That is not an option,” he had said, with a note of finality.

“I’ll make it easier for you to leave then by taking that emotion, so you will have no bounds left to this place.” Before anything could be done, Fryner’s eyes flashed, and a wordless curse fell over Merlin. The Court Sorcerer had fallen to the floor with a gasp, hands clutching his chest, as a wisp had floated from him and hovered in the middle of the room for all to see. It had looked like a small cloud, but it was tinged gold with a pure emotion.

“This is the love you have for Camelot,” Fryner had declared for all of the room to hear. “See how your Court Sorcerer cares for your Kingdom. Without this in him, Merlin has no desire to associate himself here. Will you come with us now?”

“Damn…imbeciles,” Merlin grated as he stood again with a terrible fury in his eyes. “Give it back.” The leader hadn’t look too sure of himself at that second, so sure that without the emotion, Merlin would be willing to go immediately. The spell Fryner casted was to take the strongest emotion, and what had hung above their heads was not his love for Camelot.

It was for Arthur.

*

Elyan doesn’t remember, but he’s more than happy to sit and listen to Lancelot, Gwaine, and Merlin speak, to learn bits and pieces of what he should know about his past life. At first they avoid stories after Lancelot sacrificed himself, until the noble knight explicitly said he wanted to know more. He smiled wide at the telling of Gwen’s coronation, then laughed when Gwaine said she stumbled through her first month in Court.

“No one noticed though,” Gwaine says. “Everyone knows Gwen, right? She does that thing where she rambles and says the first thing on her mind, and we knew it, but the Court didn’t. We thought Arthur was going to have a laughing fit when the new Queen Guinevere interrupts the guest’s speaking, wondering why he hadn’t tried to fix the problem with his own livestock himself before coming to the King for compensation.”

“And you could see, oh my Gods,” Merlin snickers and tries again. “Could see all the nobles in the room thinking, we’ve got a Queen that won’t take shit, better think of something clever the next time we approach them.”

“She grew into it, though,” Gwaine adds for Lancelot. “Still interrupts the hell out of everyone she thinks they’re spewing bullshit, but she learned to quiet those cute ramblings. Oh, but when she drank…” He chuckles. “I could have swore it was little miss Gwen all over again.”

“I still want her to meet Elyan, so that she knows he’s here when she remembers,” Lancelot says. Merlin had earlier made the revelation of Gwaine being taken to Avalon, which made Lancelot deflate and look toward the door. It still didn’t explain Will, though.

Elyan gives a smile and says softly, “I hope she'll be pleased with me.”

“Why didn’t you just bury everyone in Avalon?” Gwaine asks Merlin. “Auto-memories.”

Merlin rolled his eyes. “Yes, let me just take every knight and civilian, and not to mention the Queen of Camelot, during their passing ritual. Almost everyone else had a pyre. Gwen had stressed she wanted to be buried with Arthur, but the Council of Advisers ignored her wishes after death. Her son was inclined to agree with them. I took her ashes and traveled to the Isle of the Blessed, but apparently that hadn’t mattered.” He remembers the cloak that was washed up on the shore. It must have been Gwaine’s, but the Lake preserved it somehow, and Merlin had wrapped it around Gwen’s vase of ashes before setting her at the altar.

He had stayed there for a week, after.

“Worth a shot, mate,” Gwaine says with a shrug.

“Any idea what’s supposed to happen if we all remember?” Lancelot asks. “The legends say Arthur’s return is when Brittan’s in trouble.”

Merlin sighs and runs a hand over his face and through his hair. “I don’t know. It’s not like he’s much of a warrior in this life.”

“Give me a sword and I bet you I could still face an army,” exclaims Gwaine.

“Speak when spoken to, Gwaine,” the other knight says with a soft smirk, and is rewarded with a punch. Lancelot continues more seriously, “I don’t think swords are much use against today’s armies. Ever held a gun in your life?”

“Have you,” he challenges.

“Six year tour in Afghanistan.” Lancelot raises an eyebrow, amused and Gwaine’s mouth clicks shut.

“I’ll ruin my artist callouses,” he says after a moment and Elyan snorts.

Conversation wraps up quickly after that since it’s almost time for Bradley to come back to work. Merlin tells them to come by the middle of week after next, so they won’t be bothered by terse nurses and the Council swarming in, but it’s for his own benefit. He doesn’t want any witnesses when he’s off his medication, and he’s relieved when they agree readily enough. Gwaine looks like he wants to come back as soon as possible, his hand squeezing Merlin’s shoulder, but states he needs to start drawing again anyway.

Gwaine’s an amazing artist; Merlin would never have guessed that he’d get the knack for drawing architecture, landscapes, and portraits considering Merlin recalls the scribblings he’d done back in Camelot.

Lancelot guides Elyan to the counter, Merlin and Gwaine trailing behind. Gwen’s laughing at something Morgana said, and Merlin’s heart swells at the sight of them. He misses Morgana like this. The sorceress had always treasured Guinevere, and vice versa, until her betrayal; he’s happy that she’s been reunited with her old friend, for the time being. Merlin will forever regret not telling her about his magic when she was so scared. She had deserved better, but he was always going to side with Arthur.

He’s going to miss her when she remembers.

Morgana and Gwen look at them approaching. “Not planning to stay?” Morgana asks, seeming truly disappointed. “Bradley should be here within ten.”

“I’ve got to get back home,” Gwaine says. “I’ve had an inspiration speaking with this magical fella.” He gestures at Merlin, and Merlin swats at him. The sorceress looks excited at the thought of a new series of artworks. “Ready to go Angel?”

Gwen is staring at Elyan, and Elyan is staring right back. Their eyes are wide, and Merlin glances at Lancelot who’s watching them with anticipation.

“Do you know him, Angel?” Morgana asks curiously, catching on that something was happening.

“I—” Her face scrunches, like she’s terribly confused and unsure with herself, and Merlin’s holding his breath. Gwen shakes her head, her gaze slowly shifting to Gwaine, then Lancelot, Merlin, and Morgana. “I… think we met before. I see a lot of people come by at work. What’s your name?” she asks.

“He doesn’t speak—”

“Elyan,” he answers, and Gwen makes a sound not unlike a sob.

Morgana looks at Elyan with confusion. “That’s the name Colin gave him, but he’s Adetomiwa. Are you alright, Angel? What’s wrong?”

“She’s tired,” Lancelot answers for her, leaving no room for anything else to be said. Gwen looks at him with wide, watery eyes but nods in agreement. Her gaze drifts back onto Elyan and Merlin is wondering if he’s just wishing for things to happen. “We need to get home. Tell Bradley we were here? Is there food left for him?”

The nurse is looking concerned and suspicious, but she nods. “Yes, of course. Richard thought it was good. You go home and get some rest, dear. Text me when you’re feeling better?”

Gwen nods slowly. “Of course,” she stutters.

*

Elyan pulls Merlin aside when his sister and friends leave, down the hall toward his room where they can speak privately. They pass Arthur on the way, but Elyan completely ignores him. One thing at a time. The room is empty, and he practically throws Merlin on his bed as he paces his side of the room, and the sorcerer is staring at him with wide eyes. That’s a whole other matter, too — not knowing Merlin had magic, but now it all seems so obvious! The druid boy sits next to Merlin with an equally wide smile.

“ _Wonderful, isn’t it, Sir Elyan?_ ”

“Shut it for a second.” He’s trying to organize everything rushing in. It’s hard, because he’s not much older than when he began as a knight. How to separate his experiences at the age of twenty-six in two bodies, two lifetimes.

“Okay…” Merlin trails, eyebrow lifting. “Let me know when you’ll tell me what’s wrong.”

“ _He was speaking to me, Emrys._ ” It goes unheard by Merlin.

He remembers the weight of a sword in his hand, sitting at the Round Table, climbing the tower where his sister was held captive by Morgana. He never thought he’d get his memories back. He wanted to be apart of the story the Dragon told him but he didn’t imagine he’d actually have the chance to, and now Elyan doesn’t know what to do with it.

“I remember, Merlin. Gwen’s my sister, our father was named Tom, this druid boy came to me when I disturbed the camp, and I remember everything.”

“That’s great!” Merlin says elatedly, standing and putting both hands on his shoulders, forcing Elyan to stop pacing.

The knight runs his hand over his head, and looks at Merlin. “Gwen remembers, as well. I can see it.”

*

Gwaine gets out of the car and waves them off, making a signal for Lancelot to call him later, and carefully Lancelot pulls back onto the road again. The atmosphere has been tense since they left Camelot Institution and Guinevere’s been too silent since then.

“Angel?” He glances at her. Her hands are in her lap and she’s got her head tilted toward the window. Daringly, he tries, quietly, “Guinevere?”

She doesn’t answer, and Lancelot exhales a shaky breath. “I’ll take you home.”

When they park outside the flat, Guinevere finally speaks in a voice so quiet he almost can’t hear. “Does Bradley know?”

He hesitates. “Does Bradley know what?”

She whips her head and stares him down. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her lips pulled down in a frown. “You will not make me sound foolish, Lancelot,” she says tersely, and suddenly her hands slap over her mouth as Lancelot stares at her. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like that. I don’t even know if you prefer Lancelot over Santiago.”

So that’s what Queen Guinevere sounds like. Lancelot brushes off the shock and smiles softly at her. “You’re alright, and either is fine. Should we go inside and talk?”

“I’d like that very much.”

*

_My dearest friend Merlin,_

_Please excuse my attitude toward you when we first met again; I’ve just realised I’ve been in disguise. Lancelot tells me you would get a kick out of that one._

_Lancelot’s informed me of everything I’ve missed in conversations with you, even told me of your missing magic and immortality predicament. The first thing I need to say is that when the time comes, I’m ready for whatever happens. I’ll be there for you like you’ve always been for me, even if that includes eating with Morgana again. Oh my word, what an experience as I replay it with what I know again._

_I feel like I’ve woken up from a dream. Like everything that I’ve been missing in my life has been completed. Did you know that when I was in university with Arthur I majored in Historical Literature? Arthurian Legends was my favorite to work with, and I remember getting a laugh out of Arthur applying for the hospital you live at, the name so perfect to my hobbies. I never went and did anything with my degree, obviously. Lancelot’s been telling you all my secrets lately, and I’m thankful for that. I wish I would have remembered being who I am sooner._

_It’s odd. I remember everything so clearly. Being a maid, being Queen, being married, having children, and I keep looking over my shoulder now expecting to see the Advisers hovering, or my children running around my feet. I like living simply again, and the new age technology we have today. Plumbing is a luxury I wish we thought of in Camelot! Which time period have you’ve enjoyed living through the most, would you say? I can use you, you know, and go back to school for History — comparing what you know versus the textbooks, it’d be fun._

_Please keep an eye on my brother. I looked at Elyan today and I knew. I was back in Morgana’s tower, holding his body in my lap while he died, and I felt a rush of agony at the sight of him. I have missed Elyan so dearly after I lost him, and I want nothing to happen again. Losing your sibling is much like losing the other half of your soul; whatever I lack, Elyan makes up for, and we are as much of each other as twins. I’m going to attach a letter for Elyan, please give it to him._

_You tried at the start to bring our memories back, but Lancelot and Gwaine had danced around it, as in: if we did, that’s great — if not, ‘hi, I’m Santiago and you’re Angel’. That must be terribly frustrating for you when we can’t remember. I prefer being Guinevere because that’s my identity, I felt like I should have always been someone else, but I’m happy living the life of Angel Coulby. I may change my name later, who knows? I’m going to be hinting all around for Arthur to help jar his memory somehow. Hit him over the head with an iron skillet. May I? No? Fine, I’ll think of something else, but you’ll probably get to him faster. You always belonged to him, didn’t you._

_Living with Arthur isn’t strange. I loved him with all my heart until my first death. I still do love and cherish him now, but my heart and soul belongs with Lancelot in this go around by happenstance alone and I don’t regret it. I also know you have been living all this time for Arthur, and I know you will make him happy if the fates allow it. Stop your blushing, we’ve talked about it before. Speaking of husbands, seeing Leon was a surprise, too, and it saddens me that he doesn’t remember yet._

_Leon, Arthur, Gaius, Percival. Am I forgetting anyone that I would like to remember the Arthurian Legends as memories? Knowing Katie as Morgana now makes me miss everything we had, and I hope she never remembers herself as the High Priestess of the Old Religion. I’ll keep Katie and treasure her the same as how I’d like to treasure the memory of Morgana, the Morgana we knew and loved._

_Take care, my friend. I’ll see you when I’m able to next week, hopefully with Lancelot and Gwaine if work allows it. In the mean time, however, can you check the etiquettes of how you can spend a night or two away from the hospital? I’m almost positive the facility has a procedure it follows as any other where you can spend a day and night (at least) outside. It may be just my luck if it’s for families only… On a related note, did you admit yourself? Are you able to leave whenever you want? You’re not crazy Merlin, what are you doing there? What is my brother doing there? At a universal-sized question, why are a handful of people we’re acquainted with all in that one building (it’s because it’s Camelot, isn’t it; haha, joke’s on you Arthur)?_

_I miss to have all my friends together again._

_Love always, even when I don’t remember,_  
_Gwen_

*

Three days later, it’s Sunday, and Merlin stands not far from the nurses’ station with his arms crossed, watching King Uther pass out scheduled ten o’clock meds. His own medication was due four hours ago, and once or twice Uther will dare to look at him with a bland expression. Merlin stares him down with narrowed eyes, he’s furious. Uther walks by him pointedly, and Merlin’s shoulders sag, and he goes to his room.

He loses track of time when he’s by himself. He leaves the television off, he ignores the CNA asking him if he wants anything from the snack cart, and he doesn’t go out to eat when lunch comes around. He’s not hungry and he doesn’t want to look at Uther. Merlin wishes he had his magic; he’d get his own medication, Uther be damned. He tries thinking of more pleasant happenings, like his friends remembering who they are, but it carries him to ponder what the lead up to it is. When and if Morgana eventually remembers, will she reign down her terror? Will she have magic when Merlin does not? He’s overheard conversations about her sleeping habits and it’s exactly the same as they used to be. She’s a Seer now, even if she doesn’t realise it.

Will Mordred show his face soon?

It’s times like these Merlin’s so full of doubt. There were others apart from Morgana. Who’s going to appear, who’s going to remember, who will be the one to start their raid on Arthur when he doesn’t know? How will he protect Arthur if he’s continuously stuck here, without his magic no less?

Merlin flops back on his bed, arms spread out as he sighs.

_“You’re a bit of a conundrum to us, kid,” the officer said, pinching his nose. He was the kind of the two that took his case, the other big on playing bad cop. “You tell us where you’re from, but there’s nothing on record. Your dental work is a bit screwy, too. It’s weird. Your teeth lead us back to some man in the late eighteen-hundreds who apparently signed his own death certificate.”_

_Oh yeah. He was really hammered the night before he pulled another disappearing act, he recalled. Merlin blinked innocently at the officer._

_“So… what’s to happen now?”_

_The officer sighed heavily and looked to the ceiling. “Well, it’s not like we can take you back to the streets with a cheerio lad. You’ve stated you don’t have any family, or you don’t have any family that you want us knowing about. Probably in the same spit as you, no records or something fishy we can’t look away from. I think if that were the case, you’d actually stick with them; everyone off the grid gets found out eventually, yeah? It still doesn’t explain how you don’t have a lick of identification.” He was talking in circles again, as if hoping Merlin would say something to help him out. “You’re the first, real John Doe we’ve ever come across, kid.”_

_“I’ve told you my name,” Merlin said._

_“Many of Morgans out there,” the man replied, nodding. “And we went through them all, believe it or not. Well, at least those here in the London area. We’ll be sending your face and supposed name to Cardiff and Dublin divisions, see if they have anything on you.” Dublin wouldn’t, he hasn’t touched Ireland since the fifteen-hundreds. Cardiff, however… he might be listed as an actual John Doe, there. He thought that alias funny, for some reason, in the fifties. “Call in Scotland Yard if we hafta. For now, to try to get some proper answers, we have a psychotherapist coming in. You don’t have to answer any of his questions you don’t want, but it’ll make it easier for everyone, alright? We just want to get you home safe, kid.”_

_Merlin shrugged. “I’ll talk with him.”_

_Merlin wasn’t looking at the door when the therapist came in, so when he turned and saw his father standing there, he thought he may have been dreaming. He gaped and he was pretty sure he may have cried without realising it. His father paused and looked at him strangely._

_“I’m Dr. Balinor Lynch. Is something the matter?”_

_He swallowed a couple times. “You just… remind me of someone I miss,” he said weakly._

_And then Balinor Lynch’s eyes glowed yellow and Merlin felt time pause around them._

_“I am that someone, Merlin,” his father affirmed. “We don’t have long to talk, and after I’m gone those police officers are going to wonder where I am, or if I was even real.”_

_“You are real, though,” Merlin urged._

_“I’m as real as the last time you saw me.” Balinor gave him an apologetic tilt of the lips before opening his briefcase. “We’re going to do this proper, though, before they hand you off where you’re meant to go. You’ve been ignoring the natural urges, Merlin, and just because you don’t have magic right now doesn’t mean you’re to ignore gut instinct. You’re giving up, and you can’t do that.”_

_What was the point? He saw Elyan a couple months ago and the knight saw him like any other stranger on the street, looked right pass him. Obviously it wasn’t meant to be, obviously he was mistaken, obviously that wasn’t Elyan, and so Merlin went on his way bitterly and angry at the White Goddess. Merlin stared. “How did you know that?”_

_Balinor rolled his eyes. “I’m your father. I know more than you think.”_

His father prescribed him the same Pexeva dosage that Uther was now withholding from him. He told the officer, under a spell, that Merlin was to be sent to Camelot Mental Health Institution and nowhere else. Merlin had rolled his eyes at the time at the name, rolled his eyes when he met Uther, but looking at Gaius… that hurt, and something in him had burst. Gaius was his friend and father-figure throughout most of his young adult life. He stopped ignoring his gut instincts, realising there was something he had to do with these familiar faces, but Merlin was shot down at every turn.

What was he supposed to do with this? No remembered anything. No one remembered him, and he was alone as he was in the beginning.

Then the facility hired John Hurt, RN as a temp night nurse. He’d been working there for a week before he passed Merlin’s first Ambien, which Merlin didn’t understand why. Merlin looked up at the nurse for the first time, and asked, “I know what time it is, but I’m not tired,” and he watched as John stumbled backward and fall nearly on the floor.

“By the Gods,” he had said in a raspy voice. “Merlin.”

Merlin had stared at him, mouth agape. “Kilgharrah.” Then, “You’re working for Uther. _Irony_.”

Then it wasn’t so lonely anymore. He had an ally who knew who he was, and Kilgharrah got hired as a full-time nurse. Gaius thought he was sick, ‘played along’ sometimes, but Merlin thought that was worse. Then staffing changed. Alice, Morgana, and Freya were brought in, and Will and Elyan brought themselves in for ails. Gut instinct told him that he was to bring their memories back, but there was only so much Merlin could do.

Then, _then_ … two years later when things had fallen in a routine of disappointing conversations, skipped Ambien and sleepless weeks, and being teased with things he couldn’t have, Merlin saw—

There’s a knock on his door, and Merlin turns his head to the clock. It’s late afternoon, just before dinner. “I’m not hungry,” he calls out to the worker. His stomach betrays him by grumbling quietly in disagreement, and he narrows his eyes at it.

The door opens a crack and Merlin sees Arthur sticking his head in, dressed in casuals. “Laura told me you refused lunch, too. May I come in?” he asks hesitantly. He holds out a Cadbury chocolate bar that he must have taken from the kitchen. Merlin’s heart lurches and he sits up to make room for Arthur.

“It’s your day off. What are you doing here?” he asks, taking the bar and unwrapping the chocolate. He snaps off a piece and chews it slowly, not taking his eyes off his king.

“I wanted to see how you were doing,” Arthur says as he perches at the foot of the bed, seeming uncomfortable. “Did Tony…”

Ah. Merlin grimaces as he swallows. “Yeah, they’ve taken me off my meds.”

Arthur grimaces, too. “I was afraid he was seriously going to go through with it. Do you know— I mean, are you aware of when you’ll drop?”

“Probably tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“You’ll start to feel a little under the weather tomorrow,” he says. His eyes go a little soft, but his lips are thin from displeasure. “Maybe a little jittery, but I want you to continue like the day is normal, okay? Eat breakfast, take a walk in the gardens, watch some telly. Whatever it is that you do. Don’t skip meals and don’t seclude yourself, okay?”

Merlin looks at the chocolate in his hand and narrows his eyes. “That’s the whole point, isn’t it?”

“Don’t give him the satisfaction.” There’s a fierceness in Arthur’s tone that makes him look up again, and Merlin sees he’s more than just angry. He’s probably as furious as Merlin. “Keep your chin up, because nothing is as bad as it seems in your head. Do you understand?”

He swallows again, his mouth bitter and tacky from the leftover chocolate. He inhales, shaky. “I understand.”

Arthur’s eyes flicker between Merlin’s own, searching before he seems satisfied. “I can come back tomorrow if you’d like?” And just like that, relief floods through him.

“Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO  
> Half-way writing this I completely forgot how Elyan died. Originally, I wrote it as if he died post-series, and Guinevere stole his body to bury it in Avalon, and TADA he remembers, right? WRONG. TOTALLY FORGOT MAN. I am so sorry to have to erase Merlin talking to Gwen with much surprise, "You took his body without letting anyone know"-or something like that. The cloak Merlin wrapped her ashes in was supposed to be Elyan's, BUT IT DIDN'T HAPPEN because there was a funeral and everything for Elyan that I apparently forgot about. SO, rewrites. Deleting about 2k words and downsizing the hell out of this chapter in scenes I wanted to sparkle on. This was really more supposed to be about Gwen and Elyan's siblingship, along side the start of Merlin's week of hell. IN FACT, Guinevere wasn't to remember in this chapter! But I like that they both do, because Will's not a loner in the whole 'how the fuck does he remember'-spew now, given Will doesn't even know what the hell Avalon is. More mysterious remembrances! But, I think, this one was a little more self-explanatory.  
> ALSO I am super excited to finally have in the open who Merlin's original therapist was that dumped him at Camelot. Yes, Balinor's a ghost. No, he didn't glow. There's a lot of hinting and rather angsty thoughts from Merlin that are really, REALLY downplayed because 1) I'm a serious happy-go-lucky sort. What is angst. *reads most of my work* oh. nevermind~ 2) we're not there yet~  
> Hi, I had coffee.
> 
> ALSO. I mention Mordred because YES. I know when he's coming in BUT OH MY GODS, if you knew what I had in store with that fella... omg.
> 
> 6/25/15 edit: I just realised Elyan/Adetomiwa had said "I had always wanted siblings." Er, no. You have a sister, sir.


	12. Chapter 12

Bradley opens his eyes and Colin’s there, smoothing back his damp hair. He feels sticky all over. When they make eye contact, Colin’s face is full of relief, and he quickly — too quickly for Bradley’s eyes to follow without feeling sick — gets a cool rag to put on top his head. It makes him sigh, and he realises his mouth is completely parched.

“You idiot,” Colin says, fond and worry in his tone. “I told you what would happen.”

Bradley tries to say something but finds he doesn’t have the energy to. Nothing really comes to mind, anyway.

“The girl’s fine, though,” he continues. “Better off than you. Gaius had seen to her. Not that I’m slighting on my practicing abilities, but you had that dread cold to start with.” Blurry images of a girl standing on and suddenly falling through a frozen lake come to mind, the fear she may drown. Colin’s hand touches his cheek, and he feels cool, feels like ice against his heated skin. Bradley sighs again and tilts his head into his hand. Colin doesn’t move away, but instead sits on the bed next to him. Bradley senses a moment starting, those rare happenings where he and Colin say things they won’t mention again. He looks forward to them, sometimes.

Colin doesn’t speak, though. Bradley glances at his face and finds him troubled. With difficulty, he reaches up and holds onto Colin’s wrist.

“What’s wrong?” It’s raspy, hardly a whisper, and it breaks in mid-sentence. “Merlin.”

“It’s the new year, Arthur,” Colin replies softly. “A fortnight you’ve lied here. Gwen was worried sicked. Everyone was worried sick.”

The time startles him, but he doesn’t need to worry about the state of the kingdom; Guinevere has that well underhand, great leading knights to take council from. Bradley hums.

“You’ve been by my side all this time,” he says, a statement that’s meant to be teasing comes out as grateful.

“Hoping for a day off now, to be honest,” Colin says, and the mood lightens. He moves his hand, and Bradley’s slips off and back onto the bed. He brings a cup to Bradley’s lips and he drinks greedily. Honey water with berry juice. It’s refreshing. “Before I catch your cold.”

He rolls his eyes and pulls back. “You would have gotten it by now.”

“The day off or the cold?”

With a snort, Bradley replies, “Both. You’d probably expect me to return the same favor, being your nursemaid.”

Colin’s eyes only twinkle in response.

*

For the first time in a close forever, Merlin sleeps in. He hears Freya knocking on his door, informing him his breakfast tray is on the table for when or if he’s going to eat today. Merlin hums and rolls over out of bed to go to the bathroom. His half-eaten chocolate bar falls on to the floor and he quickly puts that on his bedside table. After he’s done, Merlin splashes cold water on his face and changes his clothes, picking at the patient tag on his left wrist in nervous action. It’s Monday, which means Gaius will be working; Merlin wonders if he’ll bypass the chance to do the right thing.

He’s scared. Merlin is bone-deep scared of what’s going to happen (he realises thinking about the lack of medication isn’t going to solve his anxiety and downward spiral into depression (probably just bring it on faster)), because he remembers what it was like just years ago having his fits. It would come and go, good days and bad, but he was living on the street at the time, cursing the world, cursing Arianrhod, cursing his immortality. Merlin lost count of the number of days where he just wanted to die but he couldn’t, and no one was there.

Should he have told his friends to stay away?

Merlin clears his throat, his resolve stealing. Kilgharrah was encouraging him to do this. He’s done it before. Just go out and act normal, trick his mind that he’s already had his medication. Sit in front of the television, talk with Elyan, go outside. It wasn’t going to be hard getting through today, he decides. He’ll do what Arthur told him and look forward to his visit; tomorrow going to be hell is a lingering thought Merlin ignored. He opens the door.

Breakfast is over, he notices. He glances to the clock and realises he must have been pacing for a long while. Merlin wanders slowly to the med cart, looking at Gaius with a dead stare. “My Pexeva is late,” he says. Gaius fumbles and nearly drops the med cup he’s filling. He looks at Merlin, then looks away, and Merlin follows his gaze to Uther standing right outside his office watching them. Uther’s lips thin. Merlin narrows his eyes.

“We just noticed your packet was past expiration. We ordered a new one, should get here by Thursday — maybe Friday. Your medical provider hasn’t gotten back with us to allow a substitute in the mean time,” Gaius says, sounding truly apologetic that Merlin can almost believe and forgive him. That is, if he didn’t know the truth Kilgharrah shared. He shakes his head, frowning at the physician.

“I understand,” he lies in a hollow tone. With a final glance at Uther, Merlin bypasses Freya’s concerned expression and goes to sit in front of the television, and not too long after Elyan sits down next to him. The knight nudges him gently in the ribs.

“What was that about?” he asks quietly, hardly audible.

“…nothing,” Merlin lies again. Something keeps him from telling the truth. Is it because he’s embarrassed Uther is able to render him even further useless for his friends? Or, maybe, he doesn’t want Elyan giving word to Gwen and Gwaine that he’s gone off the deep end. He needs to pretend everything is exactly the same; Arthur told him that, and Arthur is usually right. Usually, he thinks with a inward smirk. The thought makes Merlin feel a little lighter and he gives a reassuring smile to Elyan. “Are you watching this match? Because I think Doctor Who should be on.”

Elyan grins back at him. “Keeping up with appearances?”

“Hey, you can’t say you’ve watched it from day one.” He flips the channel to One. Immediately, he and Elyan sit frozen.

On the screen is Morgause with a breaking news headline.

*

Gwaine drops the glass he was washing and it shatters at his feet, but it’s only static to his ears as he watches the telly over the kitchen nook. The sorceress is on screen, and she’s broadcasting that Phoenix has shot up in flames.

The only thing that races through his mind is _Percival_. Another part of him tries for reason: _it’s closing hours he works, he’s fine_ — but he’s not thinking logically.

He dodges the glass on the floor in a race to fetch his shoes, texting Lancelot as he goes.

*

He’d just parked outside Arthur and Gwen’s flat, but the phone notification makes him pause a moment longer. And a little longer, staring. Lancelot finally finds his feet and is only half-aware if he closes both car and flat doors behind him as he goes. Heart racing after reading the text, half in disbelief, Lancelot quickly turns on the television without so much of a hello to his girlfriend. Guinevere puts a hand on his arm, and asks, “What’s the ma—” Their gazes are fixed on the screen where emergency response teams are tending to the sudden destruction, listening to a familiar voice talk in the background.

“ _— will be able to search for victims as soon as the fire is out from the entrance area. Until then, it is advised pedestrians stay clear of Moscow Road._ ”

Arthur comes down the hall, freshly showered and dressed. “What’s wrong with the both of you?” He turns to the television as well and and grimaces. “That’s horrible. It was a good place,” Arthur says as the image passes back to the blond woman — to _Morgause_. He continues pass them, but Gwen is the first to move and grabs his arm tightly.

“Where are you going?” she asks, voice rising somewhere near panic.

He glances at the telly and back to her, cocking an eyebrow. “Obviously nowhere near Moscow Road.”

Lancelot exchanges a look with Guinevere before trying his own effort. “It’s your weekend. You went out yesterday. Why don’t you stay home?” Arthur’s brows furrow at him.

“What are you? My keeper? I’m just going out.”

“We’ll come with you!” Gwen says, forcing a smile on her face, but it looks too awkward. Arthur stares at them in silence.

“ _This is BBC One’s Emilia Fox with your daytime coverage._ ”

“What’s the matter with you two?” he asks slowly. The emergency broadcast ends with Morgause’s firm face staring directly in the camera. Everything, Lancelot wants to answer, but then is finally able to notice Arthur’s avoidance.

“Where are you headed, B-Bradley?” he asks instead, focused entirely on the king. Phoenix was where Percival worked and a bar Gwaine frequently visited. It may be purely coincidence, but Lancelot can’t be cautious. Morgause is a face that sends a chill down his spine, especially in this new age where they don’t know if she remembers, has magic, or if she’s has any influence; seeing her as a news anchor was a complete shock. Is she new? Gaining ranks?

What would happen if Morgana saw her?

“I don’t know. Around. Here or there. Maybe get some milk.” Arthur shrugs, but even Lancelot knows that’s a lie.

Guinevere shakes her head, hand wringing together. “We’re good on milk. Please stay.”

Arthur shakes his head, too. “I got somewhere to be, Angel. I’ll be back in a few hours.” He pulls his arm away and heads for the door.

A quick glance to Guinevere and he says, “I’m sorry,” and punches Arthur in the face. Gwen shouts. There’s a pained and confused expression before Arthur drops to the floor unconscious. Lancelot shakes out his hand and sighs heavily. “I don’t know what we tell him now. I’ll move him to the couch, but I got to go help Gwaine. He’s on his way down there to see if Percival was at the scene.” He does just that, Guinevere still wringing her hands nervously.

“What should I say when he wakes?”

Lancelot quirks his lips. “Your boyfriend’s insane? I don’t know, but you’re a quick lady. You’ll think of something.” With a kiss and a shoulder squeeze, he heads out the door, hearing her whispered ‘be safe’.

In the car, underneath the driver’s seat and in a box, is his service pistol. It’s not a sword, but it’s a weapon Lancelot knows how to use.

*

Merlin paces the day room while Elyan watches him with bouncing knees. “What do we do Merlin?”

The druid boy is dripping wet today. “ _Emrys is losing it_ ,” he says mournfully.

“We can’t do anything,” Merlin mutters out loud, still pacing in front of the couch. “There’s nothing we can do here. We can’t get word out, we can’t call anyone—” Elyan jumps up, suddenly remembering the number attached with his sister’s letter, folded in his wallet.

“We have Gwen’s number,” he tells the wizard.

Merlin looks up at him, gears turning behind his sharp blue eyes. “I can also call Will.”

They quickly go to the nurse’s desk where today’s twelve hour nurse and Gaius are both sitting. Merlin puts his hands on the counter. “I need to use the phone,” he practically shouts. “It’s important!” Uther marches out of his office.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he demands.

“I need to call Will at the correction office,” Merlin explains. He doesn’t want to ask Uther for anything, probably should have waited until after four when the man went home, but desperate times depend on desperate measures. Uther stares them down, eyes narrowing in suspicion.

Finally he shakes his head. “Mr. Joe Dempsie will need all of his attention on his surroundings. He can’t afford failing his recovery with a stranger buzzing nonsense in his ear.”

Merlin sees red. His hands make fists and he slams them against the counter top. “ _Stranger_!? I’m not some stranger! Will’s my friend! He’ll want to talk with me, he’ll—”

“Colin, please calm down,” Gaius urges as he and the other nurse start to stand. “You’ll make yourself upset!”

“I _am_ upset! He told me to call him if I need to!”

“He didn’t leave us with any instructions—”

“Can I make any call out?” Merlin tries. Elyan has Gwen’s number.

“I won’t allow it!” Uther says firmly. “You are not in the right mind to make any calls, and you’re obviously unstable without your medication. If you continue this behavior, we’ll have no choice but to put you in solitary confinement.” Merlin’s skin prickles with that fight-or-flight sensation. His heart is ramming against his ribcage and he glares angrily at the king of Camelot Mental Institution.

Gaius shoots Uther a uncomfortable look. “That’s not the way we should go about things, Tony. He’s upset. Once he calms down, perhaps—”

“I said no!” he shouts, and everyone in the room looks at him. “I am the DON, I make the rules. If I don’t want him using the phone then he will never use the phone. Am I understood?”

There’s a long silence only broken by the rerun Doctor Who episode on the television saying, “ _I am so sorry_.”

Finally Gaius inclines his head and says, “Perfectly.” He glances at Merlin from the corner of his eyes, unreadable.

Uther nods, definite, and starts to turn, but Merlin speaks out again: “You are a shit king,” he says, going for all or nothing. “You rule this institution the same way you ruled Camelot: under a tyrant command and blood on your hands. Are you going to withhold medication to all those who embarrass you? Were I even the first?”

“Merlin, don’t—” Merlin shrugs off Elyan’s hand.

The king whirls around again and comes around the desk in Merlin’s space. Merlin holds his ground; he’s faced off with a many scarier people than Uther, all of them normal humans.

“I will do what I must to keep this place running smoothly,” Uther seethes, “to give free-lancers like you a free bed and meal.” He looks at the nurses. “Take him out of my sight.”

*

Gwaine skids to a stop when he reaches the tape, but he ducks underneath. “Hopper!” he shouts around the crowd. “Hopper!”

“You can’t be here, sir!” A police woman runs in front of him and stops him from going any further, pushing him back towards the tape.

“I’m looking for a man named Tom Hopper, have you seen him?” he asks impatiently, eyes wide and slightly wild. The woman repeats her statement, and he’s stronger than her pushes, he could easily get away and search the wounded around the emergency crews, but he doesn’t want to chance jail. Gwaine crosses the tape again and turns left, then right, brushing his hand over his face and hair, eyes scanning the crowd of onlookers. He wishes he had paid his tab and gotten that number now.

“Gwaine!” Gwaine spins and spots Lancelot pushing the crowd apart almost too easily. “We need to go!”

“Not without Percival!” he shakes his head.

“You don’t know where he is! Gwaine, please, we don’t know what to do at this point. We don’t know if they remember, it’s not safe!” Lancelot holds out his hand, urging him with his eyes to do as he says, but Gwaine shakes his head minutely. He shakes his head again.

“I won’t leave him alone again, I can’t,” he tells Lancelot, right as there comes an explosion right above their heads from the hat shop across the street. The bystanders all scream and shout, making a mad dash to get away, and the police are calling for back up. Gwaine and Lancelot glance at each other. If the random fire in a crowded pub didn’t get enough media attention, this set off will. Is this another 7/7? He notices the gun underneath the other knight’s jacket when Lancelot turns quickly when someone comes up to them and taps him on the shoulder.

A man with red hair and burn scars over his face points in a direction down the street. “There’s a man down there named Tom Hopper, if you’re looking for him.”

They exchange another look. “Thanks,” Gwaine says gratefully and they both run down the street, following the mass of scared civilians, until a voice bellows out his name ‘ _Macken_!’

Percival uncups his mouth and waves them over to the shop corner, looking unharmed, and Gwaine lets out a near sob of relief. “I didn’t know if you were in there.” He grasps on the bigger man’s shoulders and bows his head.

“I didn’t know you cared that much,” Percival mumbles. “I heard you calling my name but there was too many people to find you. Calling Marco, Polo wouldn’t have been the best idea here.” He brings their foreheads together, then Gwaine hears him inhale air as if breaking water’s surface.

“Tom?” Gwaine looks up at him with concern.

Percival stumbles backward, eyes closed tightly before his snaps them open and stares at him then Lancelot.

Lancelot comes up beside Gwaine and whispers, “I don’t think that’s Tom any longer.” There’s a smile in his tone, and Gwaine’s eyes grow large.

“Percival!”

“Holy hell, Gwaine? Lancelot? What the hell— what the hell is happening?!”

A third explosion comes right behind Percival, and the three of them are flown out into the street. Gwaine’s head knocks painfully against the pavement, but he still tries to move. Lancelot’s lying face down, and Percival’s shirt is on fire. Gwaine cries out as he moves, he needs to help, but his vision swims as he tries to fight the fire off Percival. He ends up tipping him over to snuff it out and it works. He pants in relief.

The man with red hair and scars walks calmly over to them, hands behind his back. “Isn’t it delightful,” he says. “She told me your names and faces, but I think the damage will be longer lasting.”

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Gwaine slurs.

“Forgive my manners. My name is Edwin. We never met in Camelot. I met my untimely demise too soon.”

“Are you…a sorcerer?”

Edwin smiles, manic. “Look around you, Sir Knight. You think the world would be like this if there was any magic left? No. No one has magic. No one ever will again. But,” he says meaningfully, raising a hand with a single finger pointed straight up, “but there is science, and with science you can create much more damage. Flammable chemicals, for insistence, make instantaneous weaponry.”

Gwaine squints at him, his vision get blurrier and the nausea forcing him to fold over and empty his stomach. “You’re fucked up,” he wheezes.

Edwin pulls a Molotov cocktail from behind his back and his manic smile widens even further. “Quite possibly.”

It’s the last thing he says before Lancelot shoots the concoction in the past-sorcerer’s hand, and he goes up in flames screaming. Gwaine flinches, and there’s a wail of sirens coming down the way. He slowly looks over his shoulder to Lancelot who’s staring back at him, chest heaving. He can see the same troubled questions in his eyes that he has: _No magic?_ and _What will Merlin do?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First thing first:  
> Thank you to all of those who waited so patiently for this! <3 I had my schedule moved about again three weeks ago, where I was working four on and four off -- the weekends are nice, but, really, I need that three-day-only week, please. I was super tired, super busy at home, my best friend came down from Canada for a visit, graduation was happening for my younger friends, schedule moved back to my normal 3-on-3-off/4-on-4-off --- like, excuse me? Can I get a break, please? This chapter is for the anxiously waiting~
> 
> SECOND THING OH MY GOD.  
> At the point of Merlin walking away from Gaius in the beginning is where I actually paused around for a while. Like, what should I put? What should I write? Is Arthur seriously going to come conveniently at the start of the chapter? Pffffffft, no. So I just started writing a random big shocker. Something that even shocked me: I brought in Morgause. Who the fuck does that? I do that, apparently. I wasn't even going to have any of the side villains enter the story, but so I was completely unprepared to write the scenes I had, but you have no idea how super pleased I am with them. If I bring in Morgause and Edwin, there's a super chance you'll see the rest of them before we get to main big bad. I love that I get to show you lot how awful Merlin is seriously being treated, how nobody is standing up for him staff-wise (except Arthur, Kilgharrah, and Gaius (if he wasn't magically altered~~)), and what's really going to be the set off of his downfall. I love that I got to show a hardened-from-war Lancelot shooting without question for their safety, and I love that I got to bring in the ACTUAL Percival in a tender forehead-touching moment~ 
> 
> I also think... that because of this chapter I may have to raise the rating soon to M for violence and rotten humans being sadistic assholes. Language will most definitely start to become a more frequent experience, too.


	13. Chapter 13

Merlin screams, still, hours after they’ve deposited him into solitary confinement.

He raises his knee and kicks at the door, punches the softer walls. He’s angry, he’s scared, he’s without magic. He doesn’t know what the White Goddess wants him to do. He doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to save his friends. He doesn’t know if all enemy’s will continue to be his foes (Morgana), he doesn’t know if all his friends will remember to back him up (Gaius), he doesn’t know how many more familiar faces will pop up with unknown alliances. He doesn’t have any guidance, he doesn’t have any help, he doesn’t have magic.

Arthur doesn’t remember _him_.

He’s alone.

Merlin screams louder and pounds on the walls like he’s crazy.

*

Bradley springs forward from the couch, yelling, “That son of a bitch, _ow!_ ” Then he collapses against it again and cups his sore cheek. His eye feels pretty bruised up, as well. Bradley presses gingerly and hisses. It’ll leave one hell of a shiner, that’s for sure. He carefully sits up and looks around the living room, noticing the Ibuprofen and water on the table. The television is also on mute, and it’s showing repeating clips of explosions from down in London. His jaw opens in surprise; okay, maybe it was worse than he thought. Distantly, Bradley hears the ice bucket being dug into from the kitchen.

“Where’s Santiago?” he calls out.

The noise stops for just a moment. “You’ll see on screen,” Angel replies in a terse voice. Bradley fills with dread as he stares at the telly, waiting as they go through the newscaster woman, earlier images, and eyewitness approaches. Finally, he’s watching a security camera footage showing three men — Santiago, Eoin, and Hopper from the bar — standing outside a shop. The shop explodes. The clip ends.

Bradley jumps to his feet, but Angel pushes him back down and slaps a dishtowel folded with ice against his face. He groans. “You aren’t going anywhere,” she remarks, and it sounds like a threat. She sits in a recliner opposite of him, back straight and narrow, her hands in her lap, and not looking at him nor the television.

“Is he okay?” Bradley asks, the words tumbling out of him in shock. “Do we know if he’s okay, Angel? Christ, what was he doing there?”

“Eoin went to find his friend,” she responds belatedly. She doesn’t answer his other question. “Santiago went after him.”

One hand holding the makeshift icepack to his eye, Bradley fishes his phone from his pocket with his other hand and calls the hospital closest to the scene. “Hello, yes, I’m looking for someone that would have just come in…an hour ago? Santiago Ca— Angel, how do you pronounce his last name?”

“Du Lac,” she answers dully. He drops the pack and snaps his fingers repeatedly, and Angel stares up at him with wide eyes. “Oh, what? Santiago’s? Cabrera.”

“Cabrera,” he repeats to the hospital receptionist. “Moscow Road victim. May have come in with two others, an Eoin Macken and Tom or Thomas Hopes or Hooper, or something. …Well if you see them, can you tell Santiago he needs to call his worried-sick girlfriend immediately? We’re kind of on edge— I— yes, I’m aware most of London is on edge, as well. Right, right. Thanks. Bye.” Bradley sighs and leans back against the couch.

“Put the pack back on your face,” Angel says, crossing her arms and flicking her gaze to the telly. “Now.”

Bradley does as he’s told without complaint.

*

Rupert holds off appointments for the rest of the day, letting employees with family anywhere close to the damage go home early. He paces his office, his cell phone to his ear, urging Katie to pick up. It was the soonest he could try to get a hold of her; the board meeting tried too hard to keep going, even when the billowing smoke was noticeable from their window. The silent television on the wall had changed it’s stock program abruptly. Rupert felt a panic; he doesn’t know where Katie spends her free time other than an occasional coffee shop, would she be around the explosions?

His relationship with his father is strained at best. Rupert’s mother passed away years ago. Katie is the only light in his world now, something that makes him excited to go out in public again and communicate with others for fun instead of a job. Rupert hasn’t felt like that in a long time; how can he be a people-person without generally enjoying people?

“ _You’ve reached Katie McGrath. At the tone, leave your name, number, and short message, in that order._ ” He’s reached her voicemail three times now.

“Katie, please pick up,” Rupert breathes. His phone vibrates as he talks, and it’s Katie trying to call him back. He doesn’t bother to end the message and just switches over the call. “Katie? Hello?”

“ _Jesus. What is it, Rupert?_ ” she returns. She sounds okay, if a little annoyed. “ _I’ve told you Mondays are my days. You said you understood._ ”

“Oh thank God.” He exhales his held breath and straightens his composure. “Have you looked at a telly at all today?”

Either there was something in his tone, or that’s a question immediately leading to concern, because there’s a long moment of silence before Rupert recognises the news station in the background.

“ _Oh my God._ ” Katie says with disbelief. Then, sharper, alarmed, “ _Oh my God, was that Eoin Macken and Angel’s boyfriend? Where are you?_ ” she asks him.

“At the office,” Rupert replies quietly. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t in that.”

“ _I… thank you. For checking in on me, but I need to call Angel. Stop by after work, would you?_ ” There’s a hint of something vulnerable in her voice at the end, something he’s never been privy to.

He swallows before answering. “Of course. Give my sympathies to Angel, please.” He hangs up after a long second; they don’t say goodbye.

*

Gwaine swipes Lancelot’s hand out of his face, but actually misses the hand by several long inches. “I’m fine, man. Just a bit of a concussion. Nothing horrible, right?”

“Like you caught a light cold. Your charcoals will end up like Picasso if you don’t hold still and rest.” Lancelot muses and pulls back the bandage to see the gnash on the side of Gwaine’s head. Gwaine tries to swat at him again, but it’s lazier this time; the adrenaline is disappearing and the slow morphine drip is taking over. When he looks up at Lancelot, his pupils are blown wide with drugs and he laughs airily.

“Nah, man,” he chuckles lightly. “As soon as I can see one… of everybody, I’m totally gonna see how Perc… Percival’s doin’.”

Lancelot sighs. “Second degree burns across his shoulders. Otherwise he’s fine. And you’re not going to see one of anything without rest.”

Gwaine hums appreciatively. “That’s good. Hey, he’ll have to walk… around without a shirt, won’t he?” He sways hard to the left that Lancelot reaches out and keeps him from tipping over completely. “Lancelot, do me a favor and grab a bucket,” he mutters, suddenly seeming green beneath the gills. Lancelot was actually prepared for this, having seen it often enough on the field to know what all to expect when someone’s concussed. He reaches for the trash basket behind him quickly and makes it in time for Gwaine to spew into it.

“There you go,” he says with a smile. “Lay on down now and I’ll see you later, princess.”

“Arthur’s the princess,” Gwaine mumbles unhappily, but he follows the instruction and lays back on the uncomfortable ER table. “Oh, Merlin’s going to be so heartbroken.”

“We’ll worry about that when we see him.”

“But that Edwin guy has… to be wrong, right? Like, Merlin can’t be so old without there being some magic, _right_?”

Why is he asking him? He’s not an expert on magic. Lancelot sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Gwaine, if you don’t shut up and close your eyes, I’ll leave the room.” Gwaine shuts one eye but peeks at him with the other, frowning.

“That’s gonna be one hell’fa scar on your face.”

The knight edges his fingers around the butterfly stitches on his lower jaw, coming up to nearly meet his bottom lip, where he scraped hard against the pavement. He’s lucky he didn’t dislocate his jaw, or anything else more damaging. His lips lift. “Guinevere won’t mind it.”

Gwaine doesn’t say anything else, and a glance down confirms that he’s snoozing away.

Percival jerks back the curtain separating the two beds in the ER room. “So apparently I’ve missed a while. What’s been happening other than these old sorcerers popping up?” he asks. “That was Arthur with you at Phoenix the other night, wasn’t it? Why doesn’t he remember?” Lancelot shrugs.

“Hell if I know.” He holds up a fist and begins ticking off his fingers. “Everything is centered around Camelot Mental Health Institute, where Merlin and Elyan, and well, a good number of people we know are. Merlin doesn’t have magic, and according to the guy that blew us away magic doesn’t exist. Arthur, Morgana, Leon, Gaius, and Uther don’t have their memories; related: Leon and Morgana are a couple, and so far it’s done more good than harm it seems—”

“Wait ‘til they ‘member,” Gwaine mutters sleepily.

“And I’m the only one with any military training in this life,” Lancelot finishes.

“T’anks for t’at shot, bytheway…”

“Sleep it off, Gwaine,” Percival says with a fond eyeroll.

“Okay, darlin’…”

Percival focuses the attention back on him with a blank stare. “You can’t be everyone’s bodyguard against these sorcerers.”

Lancelot grimaces and rubs the back of his neck, pulling sore muscles that need to be stretched out again. “Can’t really call them sorcerers, can we. Fighting against untrained civilians is practically against my moral code, unless self-defense. What are we supposed to do now?” He doesn’t mean to aim it as a question to Percival. They don’t know, nobody knows anything. The two with the ideas — Merlin and Arthur — are completely out of commission; what are knights supposed to do without their king, without their king’s adviser?

“Call the police?” Percival suggests anyway. “If they’re going to be as loony as that last one, then we should let the police handle it, right? They’re out to cause harm. There’s nothing we can do, really.”

All in all it doesn’t sound like a horrible idea, Lancelot muses. They’re not the real knights in this day and age; they’re only artists, veterans, and civilians. But how to pick out those who were brought back, how to separate those who remember and those who are innocent. An even bigger problem for Lancelot is the fact he knows Merlin’s crossed many of Camelot’s enemies before and after his banishment; he wouldn’t be able to tell if he’s staring in the face of Mordred. When Gwaine told him about the lead up to his death, Mordred seemed to be the sort to see everyday, a friendly smile on the street.

The danger of this is that whomever Edwin was sent from — “ _she_ ” — had their names and physical descriptions. How did she know who they were, how did she get the knowledge of them being Camelot’s Knights? How did she regain her memories? Who is she? Was it Morgana, secretly hiding her true identity to them all? Was it Morgause, a news anchor with information constantly fed to her to give Brittan? Without any of these questions answered, they were in danger — Guinevere and Percival who worked in public service, Gwaine who made headline papers, Leon in a leading company and wouldn’t know he’s being hunted. Lancelot needed to speak to Merlin, get more information of the sorceresses he met.

Percival sighs at the lack of answer coming from him, and opens his mouth, but a nurse comes into the ER.

“Is one of you Cabrera?” she asks. Lancelot eyes her warily before nodding. “You had a phone call come in a couple hours ago, from a worried family member. Your wife, or something? She wants you to ring her back as soon as possible.”

“Oh, of course,” he says dumbly, blinking with wide eyes. How could he ever forget? “Thank you.” They weren’t without a leader; they had Queen Guinevere this entire time, who had many years of commanding the knights. The nurse leaves them again with acknowledging nod, and Lancelot looks to Percival.

“We do what we do best,” Lancelot tells him with a growing smile. “We follow orders. Pardon me a moment: the Queen needs a report.” Percival’s mouth drops open before it splits into a wide grin.

“Long live the Queen,” he says.

“’Ong ‘iv t’e Q’een,” comes Gwaine’s mumbled chorus.

*

Guinevere puts her thumb to her lip. “Is this the best we can do?” she asks quietly, Arthur having gone to bed at the hour, and looks at the replay images on the television. The police had released statements that the explosions weren’t bombs but chemical reactions a while ago, very possibly caused by delinquents lead by a recluse chemistry professor named Julian Rhind-Tutt. Gwen had recognised him immediately, when they showed his picture, as Edwin.

Lancelot nods. “I couldn’t think of anything else. We need an in for constant contact.”

“What does Percival say about this?” Percival wasn’t made to First Knight for just his brawn; the knight proved to be very clever.

“He thought it was a smart move.”

“Arthur and Morgana work on the same shift at the end of the week. Gaius, Monday through Friday. Sundays would be the only available option, considering Uther’s never seen me at Camelot,” she says out loud. “One day a week, under Uther’s watchful eye.” She gives Lancelot a light smile. “I like the odds. Hand me the phone, please?” Lancelot does as requested and she punches in the numbers and lets the phone ring in her ear.

“ _Camelot nursing station, this is Pauline._ ”

“This is Serafin Edun. I’m calling about my brother, Adetomiwa Edun. I’m still listed as his guardian and POA, correct?” Guinevere asks, glancing at Lancelot. He nods at her unasked question; she pronounced the names correctly. Queen Guinevere, under the alias of Angel Coulby, under the alias of Serafin Edun. Only one of them would get her into trouble, though; she’d rather not go to jail for identity theft.

“ _I… Let me check, please hold._ ” There was a distant sound of computer typing and clicks. “ _Hi, Miss Edun? Yes, you’re still listed as his only guardian and POA. Is there change you wish to make in his personal care plans? Because you’d have to come in when our administrator and DON is available, Wednesday through Sunday, seven AM to three-thirty PM._ ”

“No, nothing like that, just… He promised he would call me once a month, but he hasn’t been in contact with me in over a year.” _Over a millennium._ “Is he still awake? It’s urgent that I talk with him.”

“ _I can pass a message to him, if—_ ”

“No,” Guinevere interrupts firmly. “I need to speak with him. A death happened in the family, someone he was very close to. Please put him on the phone.”

“ _…I can connect the call to his room. It’ll be a few moments before the patient switchboards are ready to use—_ ” That makes Guinevere’s brow furrow. All the patient rooms were disconnected? Why? For how long? “ _— if you can wait_.”

“Certainly.” About thirty seconds later, there’s a harsh click in her ear and another phone ringing. As soon as it’s picked up, Guinevere says, “Elyan, it’s Gwen.”

There’s a breath of relief, then Elyan’s whispering into the line, “ _Gwen, thank the gods you’re okay. I saw—_ ”

“They’re all fine,” she reassures quickly. “Gwaine is recovering from a concussion and Percival’s going to be in the hospital for about four days. I need you and Merlin—”

“ _Gwen, wait— it’s Merlin. They’re withholding his medication—_ ” Guinevere brings the phone away from her ear and puts it on speaker for Lancelot to hear as well, because she can’t be understanding him correctly. Lancelot’s wide-eyed, horrified stare meets her own as Elyan continues to speak in urgent whispers. “ _—have him in an isolated room. I’m not allowed to go down that hallway, but I heard him screaming, Gwen. I heard him_ screaming _like he was in_ pain. _We tried to call you when we saw Morgause and Merlin had it out with Uther. He’s banned all patients from using the phones because of it. Merlin’s staff friend from Camelot — her name’s Freya, she doesn’t remember — she told me that Merlin has depression, and it can get serious. She said that Arthur was going to come see him today, where was he?_ ”

Arthur was going out. He was going to see Merlin. They stopped him from seeing Merlin.

“Oh, my god,” Lancelot utters. He takes the phone from her slackening hand. “Elyan, it’s Lancelot. How long will he be there for?”

“ _Just for the night, should be. When the day nurse comes on shift, she’s supposed to let the isolated patients out._ ”

Guinevere watches Lancelot breathe heavily out his nose. “Okay,” he says, and he rubs a hand over his face. She knows that action, where he doesn’t think something is okay _at all_. “Okay. He’ll be fine. We got to believe he’ll be fine. Listen to me, though. Freya does remember, but she felt it wasn’t the right time to tell Merlin. The Dragon has been telling her things he’s Seen and it’d be dangerous to let Merlin know them, so she’s kept mum about knowing—”

“ _That’s a load—_ ”

“Trust me, I said the same thing. Listen. We saw Morgause on the telly and we met someone who used to be a sorcerer. We kept Arthur from going out, we didn’t know he was going to see Merlin, he wouldn’t tell us where he was going and we panicked—”

“I thought maybe he met a sorcerer yesterday and was convinced to go out to the crime scenes today,” Guinevere admits, biting at her thumb nail. “I wasn’t going to let him out. He wouldn’t give us a straight answer, Elyan, it was so strange.”

“ _I can see that._ ”

“More importantly,” Lancelot says gravely, “is that the sorcerer told us there was no more magic. No sorcerer that remembers their life from before has magic. I don’t know what this means to Merlin, but they’re going to be using weapons, like those—”

“ _No_ ,” Elyan interrupts, sounding firm. “ _No, there’s magic. I’ve seen it. The Dragon has magic. He levitated a table right before my eyes, and his own had turned gold. He said he was a creature of magic._ ” Creature of magic. Gwen meets Lancelot’s eyes and knows what the look meant; they had a very powerful ally on their side, if only he would be forthcoming in what he knew. And, maybe, just maybe, that meant good news for Merlin.

“We didn’t know of this,” he says. “Thank you for it.”

“ _If I learn anything more, I’ll let you know, but with the lines restricted you need to call more often._ ”

Guinevere manages a quick grin. “I can do better than that. Has Uther seen Serafin before? Does he know what she looks like?”

“ _No; they’ve only talked over the phone._ ” There’s a sharp inhale from Elyan’s end. “ _Gwen, do you mean—_ ”

“Every Sunday. Now, Elyan… I need you to pass on everything you’ve learned from us tonight to Merlin tomorrow, but there’s a more important reason that I’ve called.”

“ _Of course, Your Majesty?_ ”

There isn’t a hint of teasing or mockery in his tone. Despite being siblings, they were always going to be Queen of Camelot and Knight of the Round Table first and foremost. Guinevere appreciates this most of all about her brother; it’s kept them very faithful to the Kingdom through the hardships.

“I need you to be open about who you are while you’re there. I need you to stop answering to Adetomiwa and only to Elyan. You are to let Arthur and Gaius and Uther and Morgana and anyone else that happens to cross that facility know you’ve been reborn, that we’ve all been reborn. As I pose as Serafin, I’ll say it isn’t like you and doesn’t match the illness your doctor diagnosed, but in reality I’m so proud to call you one of Camelot’s finest knights. Do you understand?”

There’s a moment of silence on the phone, then Elyan says with mirth, “ _I am to speak up finally, like Merlin. I’m down with that._ ”

Gwen smiles. “And there is one more thing,” she replies, her eyes meeting with Lancelot’s again. He nods. “Be friendly with Morgana.”

“ _Um, Gwen—_ ”

“You don’t know how she used to be, before she discovered her powers,” she says. “Magic didn’t make her wicked. Uther did. Please, Elyan.”

“ _…I’ll do my best, Your Majesty._ ”

“Thank you. Take care. I’ll see you two Sunday, and give Merlin our best tomorrow.” She ends the call after Elyan’s goodnight.

*

“Merlin!”

Bradley pushes apart the crowd with mutterings, turning his head this way and that over the crowd for a familiar black mop of hair. He hates it when the Beltaine Fair comes to Camelot; too many people come to follow it, but it brings good fun for the younger citizens and a nice distraction to those overworking to pull down their spring crops. Bradley politely refuses seller after trader after seller, hardly listening about their wares and wards, trying to find Colin. He’s already checked the taverns, extra full these evenings where people are pushing to get to the tavern handler, but no avail.

It started drifting to dusk. Torches and bonfires beginning to be lit, drums and flutes encouraging dancers to grab partners. Children run around with long streamers, tying them to branches and wrapping them around the trunks in gratitude to the Gods. Keeping the growing shadow off them are fire dancers and eaters. Bradley stands and watches a few long minutes before remembering why he was there to begin with.

“Merlin!” He shouts around. Some people whoop and cheer at his loud voice and make their own noises even louder. “ _Merlin_!”

Richard had said he was going to be here. _Angel_ said that, as well. When does Angel have time to speak with Colin lately? Colin’s always complaining about his chores and Angel seems to be suggesting ideas left and right for the citizens. Bradley feels like he never sees his own manservant anymore expect when he’s served meals. Just because he shares his chambers with Angel now doesn’t mean he expects to never see his friend.

A wiry hand grasps his arm and he looks down at a stunted old hag, salt and pepper hair a mess. She wears as much, if not more, jewelry than most of the fire dancers and peers up at him with one wide eye, the other an eye patch. “You search for Emrys, Pendragon Sire?” she asks with a raspy voice Bradley has to strain to hear.

“I— no, I’m looking for my manservant Merlin.”

“Oh, it’s too soon for you to use that name, forgive me. Halves and wholes, what’s not whole? My head, that’s what.” She cackles and points to the forest with a spiny finger. “He’s in there.” Bradley purses his lips, looking sideways at her.

“Why on earth?”

She looks up at him and shrugs with her whole body. “All five stones of me wouldn’t wager anything too incriminating. You should go after him! He’s probably trying to find his way back by now.” The hag pushes him toward the tree line with another laugh and surprising strength. With a glance over his shoulder, Bradley breaks into the forest and wanders a ways away from the noise and firelight. Bradley knows these trees; he’s not quite into freelancer territory, he’ll keep a safe distance for chance of bandits.

“Better be in here… Merlin!” he continues to call.

It’s maybe fifteen minutes later of what seems like pointless searching and hollering that another hand grabs onto him without warning. Heart thudding, he looks at the face of his assailant and groans with relief when it’s only Colin, pale cheekbones and black hair shining almost in the filtered moonlight.

“For Goddess sake! What are you doing out here, Merlin?” he demands.

“I— I got lost.” Colin mumbles, hands grappling on Bradley’s tunic. “Arthur, I’m lost.”

Bradley shuts up a long moment to stare at him through the dark. Colin’s been in these woods for years now. He knows the signs to look for to get himself back to Camelot, and has.

“You alright, Merlin?” he asks carefully.

“I got lost, and you weren’t there.”

“I’m here now. You’re okay. I’m going to lead us back to the festival. Is that alright,” Bradley asks, a little slowly because something is definitely wrong. Colin doesn’t look him in the eye, hands still holding him where he’s at. “Answer me, Colin.”

“My name’s Merlin,” Colin responds without hesitation. “I’m lost. Where are you?”

*

Hands led him back to his room. Cold hands, warm hands. Hands without faces. Faces and hands that aren’t important, have no names in Camelot. Hands that he feels he doesn’t know, shouldn’t care to know. Now, Merlin lays on his side, too tired to move. His body is as alive as ever, but his mind is so tired and it weighs his limbs like lead. Merlin heaves a sigh and blows it out in a long, steady breath. His throat feels raw.

He ignores the various knocking on his door throughout the day. Some of the voices call him Colin, others call him Merlin. He doesn’t feel like being either of them. There’s commotion outside his room; he hears men talking in loud, deep tones. Merlin shuts it out and slowly reaches for his half-eaten candy bar, glancing at the clock that says it’s two in the afternoon.

That’s seven hours since the day nurse came on shift, seven hours he’s been back in his room, nearly forty-eight hours that Arthur hasn’t been back.

*

It takes a lot of convincing from Angel for Bradley to walk out the door. He’d woken up in a strange mood that morning and felt the urge to go see Colin immediately; it has nothing to do with his dream (Bradley is so tired of those damn dreams. He’s worked at Camelot for a month now and from the start he’s been dreaming things of legends. Inaccurate, but close). It _doesn’t_. He’s been worried for the last few days about his patient going through withdraw illegally. Surely by now there would be an obvious difference in mental status.

On the other hand, Angel’s boyfriend had just been in the hospital, and — despite the shiner Santiago gave him — Bradley is inclined to care about those matters when he’s affiliated with her. It’s earned him the _best friend_ title, but when he apparently looks at the door too often Angel practically shoves him out. Literally shuts the door in his face, giving him an oddly knowing smile. What happened to yesterday’s caution?

When Bradley enters his workplace, however, there’s a completely surprising scene in the middle of the main corridor.

Adetomiwa is sitting on the floor, yelling at the top of his lungs, “There is nothing wrong with me, there is nothing wrong with Merlin! I am Sir Elyan of the Round Table! Long live the King! Long live the Queen!” and Richard is giving him a shot to the thigh. Anthony’s standing over them with the reddest face Bradley has seen yet, telling the patient to shut up each time he repeats the statements.

“Long live the King! Long live the Queen!” Bradley has never heard him speak more than five words at once.

“Any more and I’ll send you to solitary confinement!” Anthony threatens with a growing fury. “If anyone is the king of this place, it’s me! Long live _me_!”

Adetomiwa stops his charade for a moment to look up at him. Bradley sees him grin. “Long live King Arthur.”

Suddenly he turns his head and stares straight at Bradley, and he feels a shiver run down his spine. He looks at him with the same knowing eyes that Colin does. Anthony follows Adetomiwa’s gaze, a look of surprise taking over his features. He has a feeling the DON didn’t want to be seen in such a position, and Bradley can understand why: considering the droopiness overcoming the patient, Richard is pushing a sedative.

“What are you doing here?”

“Was he being violent?” Bradley asks instead, tone taking an edge of _knowing_. Adetomiwa has never been violent in his patient history, has hardly said three words to staff members. This was unusual but Adetomiwa was talking! That was behavior to be rewarded, not condemned, especially when there were plenty others that made loud scenes during the night and day. Why shut him up? So he spoke the same delusions Colin did. Bradley figured he was repeating what he heard, but then… Bradley couldn’t forget how Anthony treated Colin when spouting off about a different time.

“I’ll handle Mr. Edun here,” Anthony says evasively, “I want you—” he punctuates this by jabbing a finger in his direction, “—to go talk to that headcase Morgan—” _Merlin_ , Bradley corrects in his head because he’s the man hurting a patient in his care. Give him what he wants, he’s reminded by Hurt’s words. Looking at Anthony is making him feel resentment, “—to stop spreading his delusions around! This is the second one he’s whispered lies to, and they’re _believing_ him!”

Adetomiwa slowly shakes his head at Anthony. “You’re wrong.”

Bradley quickly intervenes before the patient faces anymore of the older man’s ire. “Richard, can you please find a CNA, to get a wheelchair for Adetomiwa?”

“M’ name’s Elyan.”

_My name is Merlin._

It’s said with the same conviction, the same practiced sounds, like Adetomiwa’s been calling himself Elyan his entire life. Bradley tries not to think about it. What he thinks, however, is an epidemic — or maybe a sort of shared delusion by an unknown number of unrelated people. The Camelot Syndrome. Richard nods and hurries off immediately, his expression troubled. Bradley doesn’t miss the looks he shoots the DON, either. How much is Anthony going to get away with, when his staff is obviously against it (yet doesn’t make the call, doesn’t turn him in)?

“I’ll go speak with him,” Bradley says.

Anthony seems to realise suddenly, again, he’s in casual wear because he says, “It’s your weekend, what’re you doing here? You look like you were in a fight.” Richard returns with Rachel and, with her, a wheelchair.

“What are you doing on the floor, there?” she asks with concern. Bradley knows there’s no way she missed the shouting match between the two; when she crouches down to help Adetomiwa up, her back to Anthony, she mouths _are you okay?_ The patient shrugs and stands with her, and they slowly leave down the hall.

He turns back to his boss. “Something like that. I was just passing by,” he says offhandedly. “Couldn’t remember if the time sheets were due this week or not.”

Anthony nods. “Next week.”

“I’ll stop by Morgan’s room before I leave then.”

“That’ll be appreciated.” Job done, the DON stalks off and Bradley waits a moment before latching on to Richard’s arm.

“What the hell has happened?” he hisses. Richard has the audacity to at least seem ashamed, refusing to meet his eyes. “This is just my weekend; not a lot is to happen. _I was here two days ago._ ”

“It’s gotten… bad, Bradley. I notice John’s not giving Colin his Ambien, so you must know that Colin also isn’t taking his day medication.”

Bradley’s lips tighten. “I’m aware.”

“He was sent to isolation yesterday, the patient’s phones —” He doesn’t care, he’s not listening at that point, everything else that the nurse could have said doesn’t matter; Bradley’s letting go of his arm and taking off down the hall. Colin was sent to isolation. He was _isolated_ from others while _depressed_. He doesn’t bother knocking when he enters.

Colin is on his side, staring at him. His fingers are crumbling a chocolate bar over his bedspread, and he doesn’t say anything. There isn’t much of recognition in his eyes.

He shuts the door quietly behind him, and breathes, “Colin…”

It’s a violent reaction: The patient tenses every muscle in his body, his fingers snapping what’s left of the chocolate bar. Colin’s eyes become wide as he focuses clearly on him, breaths coming out in shallow pants and gaining speed. Hyperventilating. A panic attack. Bradley curses inwardly and is only able to take one step forward before Colin makes a whining sound of distress.

“D-don’t…” Colin whimpers, his face distorting with sadness. “You don’t know me. You don’t…”

“I’ve known you for a good month,” Bradley tries. “Please, Colin.”

“ _That’s not my name!_ ” he shouts. “A month scrapes up nothing, _nothing_ compared to what I lived, and you will never understand. How could I ever thought you were Arthur? You’re nothing.” It comes like a hiss, and Colin withers on the bed, laying on his stomach and putting his face in the pillow. His body shakes and the sound of his breathing is labored. Bradley swears out loud this time and crosses the room in two strides, urging Colin to turn over and clasp his hands around the patient’s arms. He shushes him but it doesn’t do much good; Colin curls into Bradley with silent screams and heavy pants. Bradley had avoided using Colin’s name the last time, but he sees that he has no choice but to call him Merlin.

“I know it’s not, M-Merlin.” Bradley winces at his obvious awkwardness using the name, but Colin hasn’t freaked out any further. He’ll take that. “That’s my fault, it’s my fault. Kill-grah-err, the Dragon — he told me to call you Merlin and I didn’t listen, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I know it doesn’t help me understand who you want me to be, but I’ve never lied to you, Merlin. I want to help you.” He is sorry, his remorse is genuine. Colin is his patient and Bradley’s failed him.

“Y-you can’t help m-me,” he wails. “I’ve n-nothing left here and- and I just w-want to die.”

Colin’s mouth finally closes, but his eyes are still scrunched tight and his breath comes shallowly through his nose. Bradley takes one hand and smooths back his sweaty hair; Colin tilts his head to lean into the touch, a sad noise escaping him. It makes his chest hurt.

“I’m lost,” Bradley whispers out of nowhere. “I don’t know what to do anymore.” Does he inform the Council when they come tomorrow? Will Colin do that for them? In the medical field, one word of Anthony’s mistreatment on the patients would have him suspended with an investigation pending. He wouldn’t be able to come back until proved innocent. Testimonies from staff and patients alike would have Anthony’s license stripped from him; it’s not just Merlin in danger, it’s everyone who works and lives here.

A patient tells him he wants to die, and Bradley’s hesitating.

“D-don’t call.” Colin looks at him from under his lashes, eyelids barely parted. His voice is hoarse. “This challenge is for me.”

“You are _suffering_ , Merlin. Why— why am I watching this?” This is everything he swore he would turn in. It’s abuse, and Bradley has a guilty hand in it. “I don’t understand why I can’t do anything for you. I’m enabling Tony to do whatever he wishes here when it isn’t right.”

Colin doesn’t say anything for a long time, but his eyes slowly widen. They take in recognition when they look at him. “Blessed Goddess, you _are_ Arthur,” he says quietly with some awe, like he had sincerely doubted. Somehow that stings Bradley, who’s been Arthur since he walked through the doors. “You’re not— you’re just a prince.” Water wells at the corners of his eyes and his lips wobble into a little smile. “You’re Prince Arthur and I’m not alone.”

Bradley would be the bloody President of the United States if to keep Colin smiling.

*

Colin calms down slowly. He holds onto Bradley’s hands as he explains more details with surprising patience. “He’s your father, Arthur. You’ve always hated to conflict against him. It was easier for you to just do as he demanded, despite the consequences. You dealt with those on your own with a heavier conscience than Uther’s. The druid’s spirit is an example of that.” Bradley shifts uncomfortably at the mention, but Colin only shrugs. “You’ll remember that with a better expression, one day.

“When you were King, and Camelot had flourished from your reign, we came upon the chance for you to see Uther again,” Colin says. Bradley has been carefully watching his emotions cross his face, listening to the tone. When recalling ‘what’s happened’, Colin has a distant look in his eyes, thinking back, and a wistful sound as he talks. It’s slow, though. Colin’s still exhausted from his panic attack, tired of feeling the way he does. “You were very adamant to receive his approval but he argued against all your choices, all which helped create a better Camelot. When Uther tried to destroy what you made and loved, you took back control. You were disappointed that your father didn’t agree with any that you accomplished, something I believe still bothers you.”

“Anth— Uther is power-hungry and controlling, in charge of many lives in this building,” Bradley says. “It’s different, and I should be able to say something because he isn’t king here. The laws aren’t his creation and he has to abide by them, as well.”

“That’s true,” Colin nods, “but _why_ haven’t you done anything? Morally you know it isn’t right and you speak to anyone else that it’s wrong. Subconsciously you’re still seeking approval. Me telling you not to call the Council shouldn’t stop you. You’re stopping you.”

Bradley fixes him a sharp look. “I swear that you’re the only one keeping me from telling the Council. You told me you wanted to die. I should shove Pexeva down your throat right this moment and put you on suicide preven—”

“You won’t,” Colin waves him off dismissively. “I say those things, and by Goddess I do mean them, but you think I would still be here today if I could? I’m not a coward. I’m not afraid of death. I literally cannot die.”

“Don’t be absurd, Merlin,” he scoffs. “You would be… _impossible_.”

“No,” he grins slightly, quirky. “I’m legendary. Jokes aside, this is a test for myself. I’ve hit a bottom I haven’t been to in a long time, and today I’ve realised I can’t do it alone. I need you.” Bradley opens his mouth, feeling distinctly uncomfortable. He can’t save someone by himself. “Shut up a minute. There’s Elyan here, Gwen, Lancelot, and Gwaine out there. I know they’re for me but they’re not you, Arthur. You… you don’t remember anything about our destiny, but I rather have you. I’ll just… fill you in along the way.”

There’s nothing to remember. Bradley squeezes the hands in his encouragingly and nods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I promised a recent review last week that I'd have the next chapter up within "the next two weeks". And, lol, the next day I end up picking up extra overtime for this week. What's normally a three-night weekend is now one, and I go back tonight. I work until next Wednesday morning, so you all can imagine me speeding writing to get this out as promised. Until further notice, chapters will be rather... delayed; co-workers have family emergencies and we're extremely short-staffed. After the next CNA class goes through (August) and the trainees become certified (between September and October), we'll be moved to five 8hrs shifts instead of our current three & four (or more) 12hrs. (Bradley/Arthur should work overtime like me.)  
> Personally, I have family visiting on the 3rd. Most my weekends are going to be spent doing family-centered activities (like sightseeing, ew) and there's a chance I'm going to be heading to the East Coast in September/October for two weeks.
> 
> ON THE CHAPTER.  
> I LOVE THIS CHAPTER SO MUCH.  
> THAT IS ALL.


	14. Chapter 14

When Arthur makes his promise to show up for work in the morning and Merlin allows him to go an hour later, the sorcerer chances to leave his room. He feels better from just seeing Arthur and understood his absence when his king explained the reason for his raccoon eyes, and now needs to confirm the safety of the other knights to Elyan.

 Merlin crosses Rachel in the hallway carrying a box of street clothes he knows too well. He stops her, and she smiles brightly at the sight of him.

 “Colin! You’re up! How are you feeling?” she asks. “Did Bradley stop by?”

 “Hey,” he says slowly. “He did, but what’s going on? Those are Will’s clothes.”

 “We’re sending them to him.”

“Why? He’s coming back,” he nearly shouts, voice cracking. “There’s a thirty day waiting period for beds!” 

“Tony accepted a new admit the day Will left. The referral is coming in tomorrow and we were told to have the room ready.” Merlin glowers at her and she shrugs at him, but the empathy is there. “It’s not my decision. I’m sorry.”

“I’m angry, but I know it’s not your fault,” he sighs. He runs a hand through his hair. “What else is new? I thought I heard shouting earlier?”

Rachel bites her bottom lip. “...I can’t say, Colin. It doesn’t pertain to you,” she says apologetically. Merlin nods, albeit warily; the CNA isn’t allowed to give out information about other patients under the Data Protection Act, but she hesitated, which is completely out of her character. Rachel has no problem about turning Merlin’s nose away from being too busy.

“Where’s Freya?”

“Laura should be back any minute,” she says, glancing down the hallway. Merlin thanks her before going down the hallway; he first stops by Will’s room and his side has been completely emptied and the bed stripped. Merlin fumes and continues to Elyan’s room.

He, too, isn’t there.

“Merlin,” Freya says urgently behind him in a stage whisper. He whips around and Freya beckons him into the utility room. It’s empty and she closes the door behind him.

“What’s going on,” he asks again, feeling the sense he’s going to be told something he’s going to dislike even more.

“Elyan is in isolation.”

Merlin’s eyes bulge. “He’s what? What the hell does Uther think-- what did Elyan do, breathe too loud?”

Freya narrows her eyes. “Don’t joke, Merlin. He was defending you. Elyan told everyone who he was and basically told Uther to back down.”

The sorcerer flushes. “He shouldn’t have done that…” He freezes with strike of realization. “Wait a second, you called me--”

“I called you Merlin,” she affirmed. “I’m Freya. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you sooner--”

“Don’t mention it,” he seethes between clenched teeth. “While I’m here beginning to lose my mind, you’re off pretending to be someone who you’re not. Which of us needs help?” He’s so angry he could spit at her feet. “I thought we were friends.”

“We are!” She says quickly. “Kilgharrah told me not to tell you. He was afraid I would tell you the visions he has Seen.”

“Sod his visions!”

“Merlin!” Freya stresses desperately.

He rounded her against the wall. “No, really! I literally can’t give two shites about them! Yeah, the future is really _fucking_ _scary_ , I know, but the now is scary too! You know what else is scary, Freya?” Her slapped his hand against the wall next to her head; her lip trembled, unshed tears shining in her eyes.

He paused in his triad, studying her face. What was he doing? Merlin felt awful, but he _needed_ Freya to know how much she hurt him. He pushed away from her and rubbed his face, taking huge breaths of air to calm himself.

“Going through this scary shit without any of my friends terrifies me,” he whispered. “I needed you, Freya.”

Merlin can hear her swallow, then she says in a shaky tone, “I’m so sorry, Merlin.”

He sighs, tired.

“...I don’t want any dinner tonight,” he says, feeling his appetite disappear.

*

Bradley dreams a different dream for the first time that month. There’s no setting, there’s no one but him in a room. In that room, he’s standing before three mirrors. The first mirror image of him, on his left, has his arms crossed in front of his chest. He seems a little younger than what Bradley actually is, and the cock-sure expression on his face confirms it.

“What are you looking at?” the image sneers. He looks away

The second mirror, directly before Bradley, looks more like himself. Tired and unsure, yet determined. His stance is casual, but his hand is kept on a sword at his hip. Bradley acknowledges him with a nod, and the image jerks his head to his left— Bradley’s right.

Bradley meets the gaze of a confident him, of someone he wants to become. The image stands with his arms at his side, welcoming with the tilt of his lips. There’s a crown on top his head.

“Are you who I will be?” Bradley asks.

The third mirror is quiet for a moment, considering. “Who are you, now?”

Bradley points the the image in front of him, and that one laughs. It’s not a mean laugh, but it isn’t kind, either. It makes him feel embarrassed. “I’m not this one,” he defends, pointing at the first mirror.

“Trust me, mate. I don’t want to be you,” the first one responds.

“That’s enough,” says the third, and the first shuts up.

“But you are all me,” Bradley reasons. The third is quiet again, and something sad enters his eyes as the smile disappears. “You all look like me, you have to be me!”

“Who are you?” asks the second mirror, his head tilting.

“Bradley James.”

The first mirror scoffs. “We aren’t you.”

“Have you forsaken your name?” asks the second.

“That is my name!” Bradley yells, frustrated. The third mirror raises a hand for silence from the other two. He’s once more quiet before he speaks, watching Bradley.

Finally, he says, “Do you know who we are?”

“If you’re not me, then I don’t obviously don't know who you are.”

“I believe if you don’t understand who we are, then you cannot possibly know yourself.” He shakes his head sadly. “I am not looking forward to becoming you.”

“He doesn’t need to understand,” says a voice from behind him. Bradley whips around and there stands Tony dressed in royal garments, more dated than the crown image of himself. He speaks to Bradley with the stoniest expression he’s ever had. “I’m ruling this throne, and I will not be disobeyed. If you have any respect for me at all, you will do as I say. Do I make myself clear?”

Bradley stands straighter and bites the inside of his cheek.

“Yes, sir.”

*

A black snake. Worry.

Strong fingers. Reassurance.

No reply, no reply. Dread.

Cold and dead.

An angel on her left, a devil on her right.

Those eyes.

Those eyes.

Those gold eyes.

Katie opens her eyes and stares at the clock on the bedside table. It glows its time: 04:06 A.M. She lies there for a few minutes longer before heaving a loud sigh, pushes away the covers, and stumbles out of bed to find tea. She takes her phone with her and reminds herself that Rupert would still be sleeping for another two hours, at least. Katie sits in her cold bay window, looking out until the alarm on her phone rings at five-thirty.

Moving to get ready for work, she forgets her cold and untouched tea still on the counter.

At work, coming up the back entrance, she notices the night guard waving her over. Katie sets her face firm. The patient most accustomed to solitary was Markus because of his random outbursts of rage. Medication did little to help him when he had a tolerance to certain drugs since being on the street.

The night guard hands over the paperwork of the night and a key to follow. “Edun is all ready to go.”

Katie jerks with a startle. “Adetomiwa? Adetomiwa is here?” She doesn’t bother hearing a reply and rushes around the desk, down the two-room hallway. She stops in front of the closed door. Katie hesitates before pulling down the window flap. She’s afraid of what she might find. What had Adetomiwa done to be sent here? Has he had a complete change of character?

“Hello?” comes the voice from within, and Katie’s eyes widen. “Are you out there, Lady Morgana?”

She opens the flap. It’s mandatory to check the situation before opening the cell. Adetomiwa stands ready before the door, hands at his sides and open. He smiles at her.

“Good morning, Lady Morgana,” he says kindly.

“G-good morning,” she returns. “How do you feel today?”

Adetomiwa nods as he says, “Couldn’t be better.” Katie can only stare while his smile widens. “You’re going to be late for report.”

“Too right,” Katie tries to say casually. She closes the flap and sticks the key in the lock.

How unusual.

*

Bradley eyes the smart-dressed woman walking the lot and waits to hold the door open for her. “Good morning,” he says politely. The Council woman barely graces him an acknowledgement. Behind her back Bradley grimaces; what a fun day it will be.

He follows her straight to the meeting room, eyes lingering on Colin’s closed door as he passes, and the staff have already gathered, tense and not making eye contact with anyone. Anthony, however, was in a silent staredown with a Councilman.

The Council woman heads straight to the back of the room toward her colleagues.

“This is Megan McMillan,” says one of the men, looking at the Council as she sits on his right. He gestures to the man on the other side of him. “Gavin Smith, and I'm Alex Vlahos. We are ready to proceed when you are.” Alex turns back to Tony, eyes piercing and face expressionless.

“Of course,” he responds, clipped. “Pauline, the report if you may.”

“Pardon me, sir,” Alex interrupts before she can say anything, “but I would like to know your staff, as well.”

Tony nods. “Pauline Collins RN, our night nurse,” he says, pointing at her, then, “Katie McGrath RN, Richard RN, Bradley James LPN, Laura Donnelly CNA, and I am Anthony Head, RN and DON.” _And don't you forget it_ seemed to be heavily implied.

The tension seems to subside for a few minutes as the night nurse goes over report. She informs them of Adetomiwa’s unusual behavior over their weekend, both his and Colin’s isolation visits (Bradley’s lips thin, hand clenching his pencil), the blood sugars and concerning blood pressures through the shift, and the estimated arrival time of the new patient.

“That was quick,” Bradley says in surprise. Everyone looks at him, Tony with a growing expression of disapproval. It was obvious that their boss only wanted them to speak when spoken to. Shame made his body numb and tongue stuttery, “O-other facil-cilities usually have time to wait f-for the patient under-going correction…”

“Camelot’s care is well-known and sought for,” Tony smoothly says. “We don’t have the reputation to refuse anyone. Besides, Dempsey’s on his way to recovery; after his meds are corrected, he’ll be able to function in society.”

Remembering Joe’s last episode, Bradley didn’t think so, but he kept his mouth closed. He wasn’t going to argue against his boss.

Right before breakfast, the councilman Alex takes a call and apologises to his coworkers; he leaves early, but promises to return tomorrow. He leaves his questionnaire sheet with Megan to chart Anthony’s performance.

Colin comes out of his room and smiles briefly at Bradley; he beckons him over. “How are you feeling today?” he asks. Tony’s watching everyone carefully. He’ll avoid calling him either name to satisfy both of them.

“...hollow,” Colin answers honestly.

Before he can respond, Tony feigns interest and worry. “Your medication should arrive by tomorrow, Morgan. If you get tired you should lay down and rest, and not over-exert yourself.”

The patient stares through him, then bows low. “Thank you for worrying about me, Your Majesty. I’m sure you’re doing all you can.” There’s no way to miss the scathing sarcasm.

“My name is Tony, Morgan. We’re here to help you, afterall.”

“I’m sure some breakfast will help fill you up,” Bradley interjects smoothly, smiling encouragingly at Colin. Colin focuses back on him and gives a strained smile. “Adetomiwa will be glad to see you’re doing better. He’s eating at your table today.”

Colin nods, looking over his shoulder for Adetomiwa. The patient notices them and waves, and Colin waves back.

“I’ll see you later, Arthur,” Colin says around a yawn. “It looks like you’re busy with the Councilmen; I’ll come bother you later.”

“You don’t bother me,” Bradley disagrees lightly. That makes the younger man stumble, a wondrous hopeful shine to his eyes. “Someone needs to pick on me once in awhile.”

Colin laughs. “Your humbleness is showing, Sire.”

Bradley makes a funny face. “I’ll deny anyone who asks. Go make sure Adetomiwa eats something this morning,” he says, shooing him off. He glances at the Councilmen; they’re both scratching on their clipboards. Gavin has a grin on his face.

Bradley feels good about himself, and allows himself to smile. He meets Tony’s eye and his lighter mood vanishes almost instantly.

Anthony turns away without saying anything and that stings Bradley more than anything.

*

They sit at the same table where they introduced themselves at, speaking in low tones for possible plans for their next weekend. Rupert in casual wear with a day off, and Katie in scrubs, her lunch hour. As much as Rupert wanted to treat Katie to the finer things in life, and even though she went along with most of it with delight, she preferred quiet nights in. Katie cooked for the both of them when she had him stop by, mother-hen; when Rupert walked in, she was on the phone with Angel. Angel’s boyfriend had gotten in touch with her, and apparently everyone was doing alright or will be. That had lightened Katie’s mood, but the telly was on mute in the next room.

 “It’s your long weekend off next,” Rupert mentions. “I could take vacation, if you’d like.”

Katie shakes her head. “You don’t have to do that.” She didn’t seem uncomfortable with the idea, however. He’s very thankful she’s open with what’s on her mind; she’d have no qualms to let Rupert know he was coming on too strong.

“The option is there. Whenever.”

“See,” she starts, sitting straighter in her chair with a smile on her lips. “My options lie whether you want our next weekend to be just us, or if you wouldn’t be averse to spending time with our new friends.”

“You mean Eoin Macken,” Rupert says teasingly. She slaps him playfully on the arm, laughing. “I’d like to know Bradley and Angel better. You’re rather fond of your co-worker.”

“He’s… interesting,” she answers, and her expression changes peculiarly, like it’s a question Katie tries to solve by herself with no solution. “You know those people you either like or dislike immediately?” Rupert nods. “It wasn’t quite like that when I met him. James was… familiar. He reminds me of someone, but for the life of me I can’t remember who.” Katie takes a long drink from her coffee, eyes distant.

“You know, I had a similar thought when I met you,” Rupert admits, sipping his own coffee. She focuses on him again with a raised eyebrow, a hint of a smile.

“Do tell.”

He’s about to, but Rupert is elbowed between his shoulder blades by another customer standing up from the chair behind him. Habit makes him scoot his chair in closer to the table and glance behind his shoulder to be sure he’s still not in their way, and beady dark eyes meet his.

Remembering is immediate, and in a blink of an eye Leon realises something. There was something about her, those were his exact thoughts, and now he understands it completely. Morgana was familiar in the sense that something told him unconsciously she was dangerous. At the time, Leon had suspected it was more because the woman was more accustomed to having a whip in place of a tongue. Never in this lifetime would he have imagined it being because she was a sorceress.

In the same process, Leon also realises that Morgana doesn’t know who he is really, or even her own self. Her actions are completely innocent.

“I do beg your pardon,” says Agravaine, voice shaped with grievance. He’s stood with a Styrofoam cup in one hand, the other stretched out before him, up in the universal sign of surrender and apology. “It’s terribly hard for me to move around these days, I’m so sorry. I hadn’t spilled your beverage, had I?”

“N-no,” Leon stumbles. “I’m fine.”

“Are you okay, sir?” Morgana asks.

Agravaine smiles, tight lipped. “I am alright. Thank you for asking. It’s been a stressful week, as I’m sure it has been for many others.”

She nods, empathetic. “Any relief for yours?”

“Ah, I appreciate you asking. All will be well. My niece had taken a blow to the head and doesn’t remember much right now, but doctors say it’s temporary.” Leon stares hard at the man and his blatant tries to trigger Morgana’s recognition.

“I’m sure the best will come,” Leon returns quickly, trying to be rid of Agravaine. He glances at the wall clock, then to Morgana. “You need to head back.”

“Shoot, you’re right.” Morgana looks at Agravaine with an apologetic smile. “Excuse me, but I must leave. Best wishes to your niece.” She snaps the safety lid back on her cup and stands. Morgana’s uncle blocks her path.

“I still feel awful for nearly causing a mess—”

“You didn’t,” he interrupts firmly, end of discussion but so out of character that Morgana gives him a quizzical glance. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “No harm, no foul. Right?”

Agravaine watches him carefully before he places his hand up again and moves himself away from Morgana. “Perfectly right.”

“I’ll text you on my next break,” she says between them, and Leon squeezes her shoulder. Morgana freezes under his touch, looking up at him with wide eyes filled with concern and fear. The shock at seeing that new expression on her face makes Leon let her go. They stare at each other until Morgana seems to remember herself and smile unevenly at him. “Be careful, Rupert,” she asks, but doesn’t stay for a reply. Both men watch her until her car rolls out of the lot.

“Sir Leon, wasn’t it?” Agravaine asks, turning slowly to him.

“You must have me confused with someone else,” Leon says evenly, eyeing the traitor.

The older man smiles, a scoffing laugh sound escaping him. “Yes, well. Whoever you are now, you’re not much of a threat, are you? Leading in a children company doesn’t strike fear into people’s hearts.” Leon’s jaw tenses. How did he know? Agravaine shrugs, more to himself. “Granted, a lorry driver isn’t the same as a tourney champion.”

“Are you trying to revive the Lady Morgana’s vengeance?” Leon redirects the conversation.

Agravaine grimaces and glances out the window again. “My benefactor isn’t a fan, unfortunately. Back then, Morgana had indirectly helped Emrys, but I’m trying to convince her that the Lady Morgana would be beneficial to the cause.” He blinks and looks at the knight. “Right. Let’s make this easy. If you could follow me to the lorry, Sir Leon?”

“You’re probably telling me these things for a reason,” Leon replies slowly, taking a long drink from his coffee. “Possibly a hostage-situation reason.” Agravaine doesn’t seem to impressed, cocking his head to the side with disappointment, and reaching into his jacket. Dread fills Leon before the traitor has a pistol pointed at the knight, close to his body and inconspicuous. “You’re on camera,” he mentions quietly. “Welcome to the twenty-first century. Put it away, Agravaine, before someone gets hurt. Don’t you have a family you should be thinking about? A lovely wife?”

“Oddly enough, the fates took another sister away from me again,” Agravaine bites. “Walk towards the door. Or I’ll shoot one of the girls behind the counter.”

Leon side-glances the staff. They were completely unaware of the tension building in the cafe, turned away from them. His mouth stretches into a thin line; although it would bring the police to the scene quicker, Leon doesn’t want any casualties.

“Put it away, and I will. We can do this easy, can't we?” he asks, throwing back Agravaine’s words. He sips his coffee noisily, watching him.

Agravaine smiles again and takes a moment to pocket his gun. “I'm glad you see it my way. Hand over your phone, please.”

Leon hands it over. “Morgana is very serious about texting."

“Now, aren't we all?” he says idly, turning it off. “Walk in front of me, Sir Leon.”

Leon wishes he could give some sort of signal to the workers or few other customers, but in the long haul the knight doesn't see a way out without someone getting injured. He's untrained in this body, in this life, muscles unused to fighting and working out regularly; he's soft, but so is Agravaine. The traitor is pudgier than the wealthy lord he once was, stuck behind a wheel and eating on the go.

The only difference is the fact Agravaine has a weapon in his person, so Leon inclines his head and sets his coffee on the table as he goes. Agravaine follows closely behind and herds him into the back of a refrigerated meat lorry after glancing around them.

“Try to stay warm,” Agravaine says. “I would like to deliver a knight, not a popsicle.”

“You would think we're wanted dead or alive,” Leon comments dryly.

“Oh, no. She wants you alive, for sure.” Agravaine blinks at him. “You think I was going to kill you with my arms? Dear God, no. I'm not above maiming of necessary, and if you happen to die in the process, she'll definitely understand.”

“Who is your benefactor? Was the bombings her doing?”

He smiles yet again, something slimey. “I can't answer that, of course, unless you want to trade information.”

Leon eyes him warily. “What could I tell you,” he questions.

“The location of Emrys.”

Leon doesn't know. He wonders where Merlin is, if he's returned like them, but he doesn't tell Agravaine this. Instead he raises his chin and looks at the man down his nose; Leon would never betray any citizen of Camelot, especially one who gave everything for the good of Albion.

“Go to Hell.”

Agravaine frowns and tuts. “He will be found. No use hiding him.” He senses the conversation is over, though, and he slams the doors closed. The man's voice comes through loud and clear, “How well do you believe Morgana will react that you're hiding Emrys?”

Leon sags to the floor, surrounded by boxes of cold cuts.

*

Bradley finds Katie crying in the med room, a separate room that held a refrigerator for insulin and scales for monthly weight checking. She’s crouched in the corner, head between her arms and knees, her phone clenched in her hand above her head. She’s not making any loud sounds but the shaking in her shoulders and the unevenness in her breathing is answer enough. The sight of her in such a state makes Bradley go on alert; she was the last one on his list to see cry. He shuts the door behind himself.

“McGrath, what’s the matter?” he kneels in front of her. Katie shakes her head and the shakes in her shoulders grow stronger, sniffles audible. “Katie, c’mon.”

She mumbles something into her knees.

“Pardon?”

“H-he sh-should have text back by n-now!” she wails.

“Who?”

“Rupert!”

Bradley raises an eyebrow. “You don’t think he probably got busy? He’s a CEO.”

Katie raises her head and glowers at him, messy mascara making her eyes paler. “I’m not a bloody idiot, James! I told him I’d text on my break, and we swore to each other we wouldn’t ignore the phone, even if we’re at work, because of this week—” the bombs, Bradley realises with a cold weight in his stomach, “—and I knew he wasn’t going to reply! Something happened to him and it’s my fault!”

“K-Katie,” he stumbles, reaching for her shoulder. “There’s no way that’s your fault. He might have forgotten, no one can help that.”

“I could have helped! I saw it happening, and I did nothing!” She loses control of herself, raises her arms and brings her fists to floor, hard. Her phone skitters away under the sink. “I never do anything to change it!” Before his bewildered eyes, Katie does it again, and again, and again, until a hand shoots out and grabs her wrist. Bradley follows the arm and stares at Colin, who’s appeared from nowhere yet again. She looks up at him with wide, wet eyes and trembling lips.

Colin takes a place next to him with a sigh. “Morgana,” he says firmly, yet still so tired, “there’s nothing wrong with feeling scared, but you need to calm down so we can help you.”

She’s quickly offended and snaps at him, “This is a very real matter, Morgan. There isn’t anything you can do.”

“Katie, maybe it’s not as bad as it seems?” Bradley tries. Katie turns her fury at him, mouth opening to say something biting, but then Colin says:

“You can explain to us what you’ve Seen.” That shuts her up, and she stares at Colin with disbelief and fear. His own expression is made of stone, all the lines of his face pulled down. “I still blame myself for what happened to you, and I am… so, incredibly sorry.” When Colin swallows thickly, Bradley can hear the click in his throat. Colin’s hand slowly lets her arm go, and when he speaks next, the emotion in his voice is completely raw. “I never wanted to turn you away. I was scared too, Morgana. How was I to help you in Camelot? I wasn’t even sure of your abilities, but I didn’t… I didn’t mean to turn away a friend. I didn’t mean to make you feel alone.

“Please allow me to start making amends,” Colin whispers. “I don’t expect forgiveness. I’m not asking for it, either. I only want to help you, right this time, at least until you remember how to do it. Please let me help you sort out what’re nightmares and what’re visions.”

Katie stares at him. “You’re crying,” she says, finally.

“Because I’m a girl’s petticoat,” he scoffs wetly and sleeves at his eyes.

Bradley glances between them and sighs heavily out his nose. “So, can we help you or not?”

“I don’t know what you can do, to be honest,” Katie tells them. “Sometimes I just… dream, and it comes true.”

Colin offers a crooked, tired smile. “Awful, isn’t it? Because what are you supposed to do when you notice the key points? Does it mean you lost an opportunity when reality stops coinciding with the dream? Are you supposed to tell someone? Watch the actions play out?” He gives her a meaningful look, and she just stares at Colin like he has the answers she’s been searching for.

“That’s exactly it,” she says, awed. “How’d you know?”

“Because I hate visions,” Colin responds bluntly. “I hate Seeing how you’re able to. I never want to know the future again. What did you See, Morgana?”

Katie swallows. “I can hardly remember the dream, but I felt it like déjà vu. When Rupert squeezed my shoulder before I— I left him, I knew that would be the last time I saw him.”

“Something’s happened to Leon?” he asks urgently. Sir Leon, Bradley’s memory supplies from Colin’s stories last week. First Knight of the Round Table, then became eventual king. Curly, dirty blonde dressed in his armor, coming back from the tavern with a Santiago-lookalike named Lancelot. “Where were you for lunch? How long ago was that?”

“We met up at Lady of the Lake. It was about three hours ago, at one.” Her voice becomes tight, eyes welling up again. “What if he got into an accident? No one is going to know to call me.”

Colin dismisses theory. “Traffic, despite how horrible it is, wouldn’t bring down Leon. What happened before you met up? Does he talk about the day he had?”

“Well, yeah,” Katie replies, “but nothing that brought the déjà vu feeling, not until…” She closes her mouth again and looks away. “Rupert was acting strangely today when he crossed a man at the shop.”

“How do you mean ‘strange’?” Bradley asks. He’s not sure of Rupert’s behavior, but at the art showing he was a perfect gentleman, letting Katie take in the light around her friends.

She bites her lip. “I’ve never seen him interrupt anyone before. He’s too gentle for that, and the way he said it, as well. Like he just wanted the man to stop talking.”

“What did the man look like?” Colin asks eagerly.

“He reminded me of Severus Snape from Harry Potter, in that particular ‘slimy git’-way.”

Bradley watches the patient slap a palm over his face. “Agravaine de Bois,” he groans. “Out of everyone to return…”

“What?” they both ask.

“To clarify, you mean a middle-life crisis man with slicked, dark hair and eyes,” Colin confirms, “Kind of hefty? Thick eyebrows and sideburns? If he smiled it wouldn’t have gone to his eyes?”

Katie gapes at him. “How on earth did you know that? Have you met him before?”

“He’s Arthur’s uncle and your number one supporter,” he sighs again. Bradley suppresses the urge to put his hands to his own face; another one? He was willing to find out if Katie could be helped, but this was turning to be another part of Colin’s delusions. “From my standpoint, Agravaine is dangerous. A traitor to Camelot and not to be trusted. Well, you most likely would have been safe,” Colin adds to Katie, wry.

“What do we do about Rupert?”

Colin sits back on his heels and thinks quietly. He glances at the phone under the sink. “Given his response to Agravaine, Leon probably remembers everything. We need to call for help. May I use your phone, please?” Katie leans forward to retrieve her phone and hesitantly hands it over to him while Colin digs in his pocket. He withdraws a piece of paper with Angel’s number on it.

“Hang on a minute,” Bradley starts, alarmed. “Where did you get that?”

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“Elyan,” Colin replies casually, punching in the numbers. Angel’s name auto-enters after two digits. “Oh, perfect.”

“He’s got Angel’s number,” he tells her as Colin brings the phone to his ear. Bradley holds out his hand. “Give me the phone. You don’t need to call anyone.”

“Shut up, of course I do,” he replies, eyes furrowing. “Gwen and Lancelot can try to find them. …damn it, she’s not answering.”

“She’s probably at work right now,” Katie reasons, also holding out her hand. “Can I have my phone back, Morgan?”

“If something is wrong, we should call the police, right?” Bradley adds.

Colin stares at the both of them, and his gaze settles on Bradley. “I need you to be on my side, Arthur,” he says quietly.

“I am on your side,” he says earnestly. “I am trying to give you the help you need.”

“You can help me by letting me try to save my friends. Leon is in danger.” He turns to Katie. “If Agravaine has him, your boyfriend is in trouble. How are you both not understanding this?”

“We’ll call the police, Morgan, it’s alright,” Katie says gently, beckoning her hand.

“That’s not me name,” Colin says furiously. “It’s not alright because the pair of ya don’t understand anythin’ and y’er treating me as if I’m deranged when there are bigger problems than me mental status happenin’! Look, Morgana, did ya have those visions all your life, or just when you started working here?” He brings the phone away from his ear to redial. Bradley quickly grabs it and passes it off to the other nurse. Colin lunges for the phone angrily, but Bradley pushes him away from her. He cages the patient on the floor, and Katie makes a mad dash out of the room.

“No! Goddamn it, you bloody turnip-head!” Colin screams in his ear, trying to push him off.

“Calm down!” Bradley hisses at him. “Before you attract a Council member in here, calm down!"

“You’re not helping me, Arthur,” he whines. He grips tight on his scrub shirt. “You don’t trust me.”

“I’m doing what’s best for you.”

“Your methods of making me better were an awkward heart-to-heart and a shoulder bump. You’ve really come a long way, Arthur. Who am I?” Colin demands to know.

The structure of the question makes Bradley pause suddenly, an inkling of his dream coming to the surface. Who is he? Who is _Bradley_ ? He knows who he is; never has he been called Arthur and he should stop the charade while he can. Bradley is Colin’s _nurse_ , he’s here to make him feel better. He’s going to take care of his patient.

There won’t be any Arthur and Uther Pendragon’s he has to disappoint.

Colin continues, “Who am I to ya? I ‘ave never wanted ya to lie to me to make me feel better. Ya swore you never lied to me. I need to know where we stand: you either trust me because I’m Merlin, or ya don’t because I’m Patient 1000, Colin Morgan. Who do ya think I am?”

Bradley stares down at him. “You’re not well,” he whispers after a moment.

Colin watches him quietly. He swallows a couple times, breaks eye contact, and looks somewhere at the ceiling. “Yeah… I— I know.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m trying to help you, I swear,” he says gently. “You’re not Merlin. I’m not King Arthur. If you believed that, you could get out of here and live a normal life.” Colin doesn’t reply or look back at him, and Bradley sighs. He begins to stand and he offers a hand to the patient, which he takes. When they leave the med closet and Bradley is about to go back to the desk, Colin tugs on his arm. “What is it?”

“When Kilgharrah gets on shift tonight, can you tell him to give me an Ambien? I haven’t slept in ages.”

Bradley blinks, surprised. “Uh, sure."

Colin’s lips lift, just barely. “Thanks.”

*

How would he know? How would Colin know what the man from the shop looked like? How would he know anything about what’s going on outside? Katie never shared that Rupert is her boyfriend; it’s not something that’s allowed to be discussed with the patients. How did Adetomiwa get Angel’s contact information? Why would he give it to Colin?

There’s a click from the receiver. Angel picks up, finally.

“Hello? Katie?” Katie worries her bottom lip and hangs up. Her phone prompts her to either call again, or send a message.

Very slowly, heart hammering, she thumbs the message button.

>> _This is Merlin. Agravaine has Leon._

She waits a few minutes, but there isn’t a reply.

>> _Sorry, a patient got my phone._

<< _Hi Katie. Everything okay?_

<< _How is everyone?_

>> _Okay._

<< _What about Rupert? How’s he doing?_

Katie’s chest constricts so hard with emotion her fingers tingle with numbness.

Why would Angel ask about Rupert specifically?

<< _Katie?_

She calls Angel, and before her friend can say anything, Katie says, in gasping breaths, “If you can find him, please, please do it. I will do anything. I don't care how, I don't care who. I want him safe.”

Santiago’s voice answers: “Consider it done.”

*

It happens right before the dinner service starts. The Council have left for the day, and Uther finally went home an hour ago.

EMTs come up the hallway and meet with Morgana, passing a manila folder. Arthur requests for Freya’s assistance at the entrance. Merlin follows behind quietly, slowly. He can be invisible if he wants. He wants to see who this new patient is stealing Will’s room.

Freya wheels in two suitcases through the sliding door, walking briskly right by Merlin. A few seconds later, Arthur follows in, holding the hand of an obviously nervous young boy. Merlin’s shell shocked, staring into the wide, blue eyes of Mordred.

“Asa,” Arthur says, bending at one knee and pointing at Merlin. “That guy there is Colin. He’s been here a long time and is very friendly. Might seem like a goofball, but Colin’s got the best stories.”

“Arthur,” Merlin warns. “Get away from him."

“What?”

“It’s him, it’s Mordr--”

“Hello there, big guy,” Morgana exclaims cheerfully. She’s put on a brave face, putting her work in front of personal matters, but Merlin’s worried if she’ll have a connection with Mordred here and now. If Morgana didn’t remember by seeing her uncle’s face would her partner in the final battle trigger something?

He holds his breath.

She crouches beside Arthur and Mordred and smiles warmly at him. “I’m so happy you could make it tonight, Asa,” she says. “Did you have a good trip?”

Mordred moves out from behind Arthur and stands shyly in front of Morgana. He nods hesitantly.

“I’m glad to hear that,” she says, holding out her hand as she stands straight again. “You’re just in time for dinner. Are you hungry, big guy?”

Arthur’s greatest adversary nods again and carefully reaches for Morgana’s hand.

Merlin’s not convinced by the innocence. He speaks to Mordred in a connection that hasn’t been used in forever.

_I knew you would appear sooner or later, Mordred._

Mordred continues down the hall with Morgana, not appearing to have heard Merlin.

 _Will you be Arthur’s downfall again?_ He asks, purposely aiming for something that will get a reaction, but Mordred doesn’t respond. Back in the day room Morgana does his admission report, speaking sweetly to him; Merlin eavesdrops on them, motioning Elyan to stay quiet while they eat dinner. Elyan understands.

Mordred speaks, Morgana and Merlin find out when she questions, but refuses to answer with words. He’s almost fifteen and comes from home while his mother is on trial. This strikes Merlin with pity for Mordred; he’s obviously malnourished and deprived of all nutrients, very pale and childlike despite his teenage years.

He’s not on any medications, doesn’t have any known allergies, is competent, and willing to see a therapist first thing after breakfast in the morning. Merlin talks at him through their connection about the druids, but Mordred doesn’t even glance in his direction.

“Maybe he’s like Morgana,” Elyan whispers eventually after Merlin explains who Asa Butterfield really is. “Neither them seem to have notice anything different.”

“As that may be true, there have been many kids in and out of here,” Merlin reasons. “Morgana isn’t one to be suddenly personal, and Mordred just... latched to her on sight. This connection between them happened instantly.”

“Maybe he’s ignoring you,” the knight offers. “He doesn’t look the type to want to cause trouble. You could blow him over.”

Merlin rolls his eyes. “I’m not looking to kill him. I’ve never wanted Mordred dead. He could have been good.”

Elyan scrapes around his food. He pokes a broccoli and feeds it to the sorcerer before he starts eating them. “But he wasn’t,” Elyan mummers in between bites. “If I were you, I’d be out of my seat at the sight of him.”

“It takes about four hundred years to understand patience,” Merlin teases, trying to lighten the sudden dark mood. He didn’t need to be anymore depressed. “It stops those impulses.”

*

“You brought a Pexeva,” Merlin remarks, popping it into his mouth immediately.

“You requested an Ambien. I said I would not give one without the other, hadn’t I?” Kilgharrah replies.

“You did,” the wizard says. He looks at the white sedative pill still in the cup. “Did you mean what you said before, Kilgharrah? Would it really not matter to you if you lost your license? Because I need you to leave your keys out in the open.” The Dragon’s gaze becomes sharp.

“Merlin…” he says on an exhale. “It’s not your fault they don’t remember.”

Merlin doesn’t look at him, slowly turning the cup. “I know, but it’s yours if they don’t tell me they do.”

The Dragon ignores the slight about Freya. “I don’t regret what I have done, but is this you giving up on the Once and Future King, Warlock?”

“I’ll never give up on Arthur,” he responds with an edge in his tone, “but that’s not Arthur. He has the face and the personality, but it’s not the same. Not yet.”

“What are you planning?” he asks.

Merlin doesn’t exactly know. He needs to look at this pretend Camelot from a distance, step away from the problem and look at it from a new angle, and that meant getting out. However, the means were unconventional.

“It's not your job to save Sir Leon,” Kilgharrah reminds, “your duty is to Arthur.”

“You say that as if I could forget my destiny,” the sorcerer says. “Are you forgetting there's Mordred now? I can’t tell if he’s a danger to us or not.”

“The druid boy is always a danger to you and Arthur, but in the meantime he seems dormant within himself like Morgana.”

“For how long, though?” It’s a rhetorical question, and the Dragon goes to the door.

“If it means anything,” he says slowly, “I am not disappointed in you for being back on your medication. I'm proud you made it as far as you had.”

Merlin leans against the window as he pockets the Ambien. "At least one of us is."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eh-heh. A little over a year, and I still get comments when I will update. I want to thank everyone who reads this story still!
> 
> Something amazing happen in the last twenty-four hours: I finished this chapter, created a firm plot and ending point, and found out it was going to have an immediate sequel, so it's apart of a series now.
> 
> Fun facts: Leon wasn't going to remember before Morgana. Asa and Alex were supposed to be brothers that came in as patients at the same time, then they were to be one Mordred with multiple personalities. I will not confirm nor deny if either Mordred remembers. Merlin was originally to be a bit more emotionally unhinged compared to how I'm writing him now. Morgana is very confused and suspicious about everyone, probably.


End file.
